Lamenting the Death of Conservatism

The 2012 general election was widely expected to be a blowout conservative victory -  at least in conservative circles. The right wing blogs, radio talk show hosts and television talking heads were certain that the president was going to lose, ending the brief chapter that interrupted the conservative story of this century. And history was on their side - the president had failed to turn the economy around, and his argument that he'd inherited an economy in shambles and faced non-stop obstruction from the right wing in Congress would not convince the electorate. With massive unemployment and seemingly little good news, at least for the working classes, it seemed impossible that President Obama could win another term, especially after the gridlock, standoffs and stalled economic agenda that marked the two years since the GOP won control of the House, an election that seemed already to indicate a deep distrust of the president's plans for the nation and a marked swing back towards conservative philosophy.

It is needless to add that all those predictions were false and that the president won a surprisingly robust re-election. As an unabashed liberal, I should be delighted, and certainly I am happy that Obama rather than Romney will take the oath of office in January. But that small consolation aside, this election was decidedly disappointing, at the presidential and congressional level. There were a few bright spots in the state referenda, the most significant being the clear victory for marriage equality in four states, marking the first popular vote in favor. The votes in a couple of states to legalize marijuana also portend a heartening move away from the three decade old sham called the "War on Drugs" - if the federal government reacts with wisdom.

But let me explain why the presidential election was such a letdown. In the run-up to voting day, this contest was portrayed as a clear cut choice between liberal and conservative agenda. Strangely enough, the loss of both the electoral college and the popular vote led to an instant revision on the part of some prominent conservative leaders who pointed out that the president had never really laid out a plan for his second term and hence lacked a mandate to undertake any plan during his term. They are partly right, but like the blind men with the elephant, also mostly wrong. First and foremost the president did have an agenda, and it is largely a continuation of his plans from his first term - regulation of the financial markets, extending healthcare coverage to larger numbers, immigration reform, controlling the deficit through a mixture of spending cuts and revenue increases. But, and this is the real crux of my problem, the president is no liberal and his agenda is really not at all liberal. He, like many Americans, leans slightly left of center, and is more likely to side with the liberal viewpoint than its opposite, but would be far more likely to be pretty much at the center if left to his own devices. President Obama took several years to embrace marriage equality, and has yet to rein in the Department of Justice from their long, wasteful and pointless war against drugs (targeting the smallest players and users while ensuring huge profits for the violent cartels and various terrorist organizations). He has embraced targeted assassinations of suspected enemies of the nation, with the verdict of death pronounced upon hundreds in secrecy and without trial, and many other questionable policies put in place by the Bush administration remain active or simply suspended (not cancelled or repudiated), with little transparency or scrutiny. The regulation of the financial market was a weak effort, and largely toothless, while the talk about increased marginal rates mostly remains just talk - these may be reflections of political necessity but the President has rarely pushed them vigorously in the halls of the legislature. His signature, and now likely permanent, achievement was the extension of health insurance to millions of previously uninsured workers. But the system lacked a strong government role and represents as much of a boon to the insurance industry as it does to the millions who now qualify for healthcare coverage. Tellingly, the basis of the entire plan was initially proposed by conservatives and first advanced as Bob Dole's alternative to President Clinton's plan, and then embraced by Speaker Newt Gingrich and implemented by Governor Romney in Massachusetts, before they developed a severe dislike of it. In short, the President is no liberal.

If that were the only problem, I would be only half as disappointed. Unfortunately, he was never opposed by any true Conservatives. Of course, to be opposed by a conservative, the movement would first have to decide exactly what form of conservatism they embrace and then pick a standard bearer to explain their position. Conservatism is essentially a wish to either keep things the way they are, or to restore them to the way they were at some point in the past. However from the practical viewpoint there are some things in the past that are considered worth keeping or restoring, while others are universally accepted as best left in the past. This concept is largely subjective obviously and manifest itself as two broad forms of conservatism, viz. social and fiscal, with an inherent dissonance betwixt them. Social conservatism is well defined in America, painfully so, with well defined positions that include support for the traditional family, opposition to birth control and abortion, opposition to gender equality, especially for homosexuals, and opposition to scientific theory that contradicts Christian theology. Perhaps I should be more charitable and describe their positions as support for only natural forms of birth control, strong belief in the sanctity of life, belief in the traditional roles of the "normal" sexes, and above all a deep religious faith in the absolute truth of Christian theology. This group was represented by Michelle Bachman, Mike Huckabee (in previous years) and Rick Santorum, and when the dust settled, they were left in the cold, with mere lip service to their ideology.

The fiscal conservatives have a less defined ideology. There are times when I wonder if they know exactly what they stand for themselves, for they sometimes seem to conflate policy for philosophy. Whether they articulate this or not, in the simplest and most positive terms they believe in the supremacy of the individual over the collective, and thence flows most of their policy. Since the individual is prime, government should be minimal, dealing with only issues like defense and international relations. The individual should be entitled to keep his earned wealth and spend it as he sees fit, rather than be forced to contribute it to a collective fund, which ties in nicely with the concept of a minimalist government. The individual rises or falls on his own merit, not on the support of others, an almost Darwinistic approach, but with space for compassion towards those of lesser merit, with the extent of compassionate assistance decided by each individual. In it's purest form, one can certainly understand this philosophy, even if one does not agree with the basic tenets.

From this philosophy flow the various conservative policies, but it is critical to note that a policy such as low taxation is means to an end, not an end in itself and too many conservative in America mistake one for the other. Low taxes as a policy follow from a philosophy that the individual is the best custodian of his wealth, but higher taxation would be a reasonable conservative policy if another policy took precedence, say national security. True conservatives believe in paying the bills as they go, and increased spending if deemed necessary must be paid for by higher taxes. And true conservatives should also accept the importance of prior commitments by the government to its citizens, even when they don't quite agree with that commitment - that commitment, be it social safety nets or medical coverage, must be met even as they're phased out, and by higher taxes if need be.

Governor Romney attempted to straddle the divide between the two strands of conservatism, but it was never clear exactly what aspects of conservatism he endorsed. It was never clear that he even understood the inherent conflict between social conservatism, which emphasizes the primacy of society over individual, and economic conservatism which takes the exactly opposite view. It is not impossible to reconcile the two worlds, but it required a level of intellectual honesty in assessing priorities that the GOP never indulged, neither in it's standard bearers and certainly not amongst its partisans. Both Governor Romney and to an even larger extent Representative Ryan ignored the dichotomy they were attempting to sell and never sought to define the conservatism they would embrace in their presumptive administration; Governor Romney had an inconsistent commitment to conservative principles to put it mildly, but I am not convinced that Paul Ryan, the supposed intellectual cares about the paradox in his position any better than Romney or even actually understands it.

While I do not share conservative principles, even less do I respect the many self-declared conservatives. And yet I, as bleeding heart a liberal a person whose heart ever bled,  lament the failure on the conservative side of the political divide. The liberals did not have a true candidate in this race, but President Obama is indubitably left of center (at least as the center is defined in America) and was accepted by liberals across the country; equally important he was identified as the liberal candidate by his opponents and embraced that label. But the conservatives never came to the fight, not on the intellectual field which is the challenging political battlefield. The GOP hoped to win the White House without winning the battle of ideas, believing that the election was theirs so long as they had a name on the ballot. Despite the ever increasing divergence between the social and economic conservative wings of their coalition, they did not address the issues but tried to pretend that they simply did not exist and nominated a man who sought to avoid every political label. The social conservatives did show up in the primary, and I admit that they are largely consistent in their core beliefs and clear about the kind of society they would like to build, but I am also convinced of the error of their beliefs and history has judged their ideas wanting time and again; in any event even the GOP decided against a full throat-ed endorsement of social conservatism in the presidential election. But the economic conservatives never came out to the lists and critically, have forgotten what their underlying ideology. Normally as a liberal, I would be delighted with a victory by the candidate on the left, but the fact is a healthy polity requires intelligent conservative policy as much as it needs liberals. Unlike some partisans, I respect honest economic conservatism even when I disagree fundamentally with the ideas. Conservatives are as invested in the success of society as liberals and it is foolish to accuse either side of hating themselves or their country; they only differ in the means to the same goal. In an ever changing world, continued success requires a continual examination of policy, and when one ideology gains too great a dominance, it tends to overreach and commit mistakes in policy. Equally dangerous is the stagnation that sets in on the intellectual side and refuses to recognize the changes in the world that make policy from a prior era unsustainable. Both sides of the ideological spectrum are equally susceptible to this failure born of hubris and need each other to balance their demons. If liberalism provides the helping hand and equal opportunity for every member of society, conservatism ensures that individual merit gains the recognition and reward it deserves. Conservatism ensures the generation of wealth while liberalism protects society from the excesses of over-concentrated wealth and indirectly provides the essential conditions that nurture merit and sustain growth in wealth in the first place. The disappearance of true economic conservatives leaves the American polity dangerously imbalanced, and clinging to clueless charlatans masquerading as intellectuals. The policies of Reagan do not work three decades later, but conservatives  have not yet figured the difference between policy and ideas and are floundering with no clear vision. Their only silver lining today is that the economic liberals are almost if not quite as intellectually bankrupt.

Betrayed By Expectations

Normally one might expect a commentary on the political ramifications of a major presidential election in the week or so after said election, but this has been a strange year, culminating in a strange election, one that was overtaken almost instantly by news that befuddled both friend and foe alike. And as an exceptionally talented leader departed following the elections, I was left to ponder whether the failure was not in the man who stood shamed before the world but in the expectations of the public who first deified him and then recoiled in horror at his humanity.

General David Petraeus was a man, and like many men before him, he happily accepted the pleasures that life offered him. Even now, three weeks after the scandal of his extra-marital affair forced him from office, there is little evidence that he had allowed his personal life to affect his efficiency in his professional duties; yet the strange Puritan attitude that passes for wisdom in modern America demands that he leave in disgrace, preferably flagellating his back as he crawls away to hide. Perhaps he needed to go once the affair was publicly known, for the rumors, the publicity and the non-stop chatter of twenty four hour news television would have made it impossible to execute his duties as head of the CIA anymore. Yet, that begs the question: why is his bedroom life of any importance to us?

Of course, as the chief spy, his personal life is of some importance, since he might have fallen prey to the wiles of Mata Hari. Even given that the "other" woman was no security hazard, perhaps the normal pressures of an intimate but secret and (using the term in a very limited sense) illicit relationship might lead to unwitting breaches of security (there is some speculation already on that score, though nothing has been revealed as fact as yet). Such arguments I could understand, but they have been put forth but mildly. One might even argue that Petraeus was never as good as his admirers claimed, and that his background in ground operations and counterinsurgency, no matter how stellar, do not make him an ideal fit as head of a spy agency, and that his work was not to the level expected or required. This again is an discussion worth having, since it can be rationally discussed; and again, it is a discussion swept aside in favor of the weakest, least defensible reason to end this man's tenure. The moral case against him carries the day, as it has in so many other instances, yet this is a unique case that it should have had least weight.

America argues that its leaders, even its masked spy chiefs be paragons of virtue. One can certainly demand that in one's leaders and their appointed servitors, but is that very wise or realistic? Morals, apart from being notoriously subjective, are but one facet of the man (or woman) - more on that later. Good moral character, that bedrock of resumes, is not the only, and not even the most important aspect to seek, especially in the head of a spy agency. Intelligence, innovation, management skills and more, these are all things to look for in a leader, elected or appointed, and we need to ask ourselves if it is more important to have an ascetic but intellectually slow general leading our forces than a smart philanderer. We may wish that the best of all desired virtues are met in one man, but if that highly unlikely man be impossible to find, or unwilling to answer our call, what do we consider more important in available candidates for that position. Kindness to animals in need is a very commendable trait, but would we really care if our CIA director tosses all letters from PETA and the ASPCA directly in the trash? Sharing the burdens of marriage equally may raise a man in the eyes of his peers, but would we disqualify a man who refused to help his wife with the dishes?

We need to really think about what we want in our leaders, and more importantly perhaps in the men who serve our elected leaders. And especially we need to drop the idea that a vaguely defined moral code should be imposed upon a person who has never signed onto that code (I recognize that General Petraeus might still have been subject to the military's code of conduct, which he had accepted when he signed up, but the role as CIA director was not subject to that Code). The whole morality question is especially ridiculous when you consider that killing unarmed men, and even more so women and children, is strongly proscribed in nearly any moral code; yet the head of the CIA will unleash the instruments of death based on incomplete information and with far less proof than we would accept in allowing our police to stop Hispanic car drivers to demand proof of residency. Lying is universally seen as an act of low moral character, yet the CIA director will not only instruct his agents to practice subterfuge and misinformation, but will even lie to the public on occasion. I don't argue that there isn't a case for such action - though I feel it's largely overstated to protect laziness in proving a case for action - or that these actions are inherently immoral. My point is only that we already accept suspension of moral codes in some areas, where to follow the code would be impractical or counterproductive. And this in in the case of principles that are scarcely debatable. Yet in the more morally ambiguous case of an extra-marital affair - was it a brief weakness, did it really hurt anyone, do we know anything about the details of the marriages of the people involved, and is it any of our business anyway - we have invoked that code and our self-righteous outrage at its flaunting to end a man's career, (and subject a trio of young children to publicity about their parents that they certainly didn't request or deserve) and leave a key government agency without its leader.

We can chase the chimera of the perfect candidate and crucify those who fail to live up to the standards of the most voluble, or we can step back and challenge ourselves to identify what we really need in our leaders and then accept the best candidate available, warts and all. And then, perhaps, we will also quit our foolish habit of beatifying our leaders (or at least those from the "correct" side of the political spectrum) and save ourselves the mortification of discovering their feet of clay.

Go Straight to Jail, Do Not Pass Go!

This odd headline caught my eye, "Mom Raises Money to Watch Daughter's Killer Die", and as it happens it was exactly as it sounded. Almost twenty five years ago, a nine year old girl was abducted when she went to the store to get some candy. Her lifeless, and predictably sexually abused body was found the next day, and for the last twenty two years the bereaved family and the convicted, condemned killer have waited for the final curtain on this tragedy. This week the state of Montana will execute the man, and the girl's mother hopes to be in the front row when he departs this world.

Her bitterness at the loss of her child is understandable and desire for closure equally so, perhaps even desirable - having never faced anything remotely so terrible, I cannot judge her attitudes. On the other hand, the general views of the public who chose to express their sentiments on the issue are as removed from the tragedy as my own and form an interesting montage themselves. Perhaps the looming quadrennial election heightens ones partisan opinions and tends to cast all issues in stark black and white terms, but it was quite interesting that most, if not quite all, parties supported a swift execution of the convicted killer, with more than one suggestion that even the trial was a waste of time. The overwhelming view also appeared to hold liberals (interesting really, that Montana was considered a place crawling with bleeding heart liberals!) were to blame for the long delay in closing this chapter.

Perhaps they are right. I have long considered myself a liberal, and even if the killer here had confessed his guilt I would have been loath to condemn him to death. The death penalty is so final that I would hate to send anyone past the final door if even a shadow of doubt remained. But I oppose it even in cases where guilt is not a question, and that opinion has evolved gradually over the years. I can see the death sentence being a credible option under only two conditions: if it brings closure to the families of victims and if it deters future crimes of similar heinous nature. The question of closure is delicate in the extreme, and as one who has never been touched by the shadow of such sorrow, nor practiced in human psychology, I prefer to tread gently around it. But this I will say - there have to be more positive ways to find closure, and we as a race are in a sorry state if watching the death of those who've sinned against us is our only path to healing. I would hope rather that we could find the strength to move past this without additional death - there have been parents who've lost as much and found the strength to do so. And crucially, if this be the only way for that mother to find closure, what would happen to her should she fail to raise the money she needs?

The question of deterrence is easier to discuss. Proponents of harsh punishment usually hold it out as a way to prevent further crime. But in fact, few if any criminals weigh the risks rationally before plunging ahead. Perhaps the odd white collar criminal may consider the downside to failure, and in the rare case of revenge killings, the flipside if usually considered and accepted as a worthwhile trade (incidentally, people acting in revenge gain significant sympathy, especially when the crime avenged is the rape and/or murder of their child, and also represents a case in which we would be largely loath to execute the avenger) but in crimes involving mental disorders - sadistic murder, and rape, especially of children - the criminal usually does not contemplate the dangers of being caught at all. And even should that calculus flit across his mind, it is not likely to deter him; the demons within are too powerful and will not be denied. The second argument against the death penalty is simpler yet - many proponents suggest that incarceration is somehow a fairly pleasant alternative, that life in jail is not much worse than life without. That of course is also the secret of their opposition, in this case, to liberals, who they hold responsible for this life of leisure. I would argue that just as no wild bird would choose to live in a cage, no matter the assurance of plentiful food, neither would any man actually find that to be jailed for life is equal to freedom outside the prison walls. I have swung around to the view, too, that the prolonged the time on "death row" between conviction and final appeal, is if anything, almost as inhumane as the execution itself.

If nether closure for the victims, nor deterrence to potential criminals, justifies the death penalty, it follows that the time has come to usher that punishment the way of the rack and cat-o'-nine-tails (coincidentally, some gentlemen of strong opinion have favored such barbaric forms of execution as preferable to lethal injection). It would also behoove us to rethink the whole logic of our prison system - are we incarcerating people as deterrent, as punishment or as a means to rehabilitation. The answer is critical, since the efficacy of the system as a means of punishment or rehabilitation can be scientifically measured (as can the deterrent effect to a lesser degree) and the system adjusted accordingly. Yet as a society, we seem blissfully uninterested in exactly what we hope to achieve from our large, and ever growing, prison system. The introduction of for-profit facilities further complicates the picture, introducing a sector that clearly has none of the above-listed aims, though it serves as a part of the same system.

The question of rehabilitation is especially important when discussing the future of sexual predators - rapists, and even more especially pedophiles are driven by urges that cannot be easily corrected. While vocational training and education may help petty criminals start a new and constructive life, and separation from drugs and gang life may provide the breathing space for others to break free from the chains that dragged them to prison in first place, even intensive psychological treatment succeeds  only to a limited extent, and only to the degree that the patient is willing to undergo. Releasing a serial rapist or killer from jail after a few years does nothing to prevent a repeat performance (I recall a pedophile who told his parole board that once released he would surely find and rape another child, and more till he was caught again), and that raises the unhappy specter of a fourth dark reason for a prison system: do we permanently incarcerate these criminals to protect ourselves from them? And can the death penalty be justified under those circumstances, when we have no other way of definitively stopping a killer from finding new victims?

There are no easy answers, but it's a discussion that must be addressed desperately, not with cliches or sound bites or glib platitudes but with sober rational argument, be it conservative or progressive. With over two and a quarter million people in jail, and nearly five million on parole or still in the system, with high recidivist rates, and with a large segment of sexual predators, this is not a problem that can be swept out of sight any longer.

Two To Tango

Some optimists have hailed Congressman Paul Ryan at the lower half of the challenger's presidential ticket as a harbinger of a serious policy-oriented campaign, and on the face of it the sitting president's campaign ad calling this a clear choice between stark and well defined alternatives would seem to indicate the same. But we live in a world of non-stop media - I would fain call it a news world anymore since most of the time is given to statement of opinions rather than the simple reporting news. Much as we may claim that we wold like to see a serious debate about the issues confronting us and the rival plans for tackling them, we have actually give lie to our professed wishes with the attention we lavish upon every meaningless attack ad and soundbite.

A serious debate would require recognition of nuance, of the possibility that opposing views may have merit equal to our own, or should at least be judged with that possibility. But when a leading politician of the right declares that his idea of compromise is when the other party accepts every one of his demands and gets nothing in return, the chances of civil discourse are greatly reduced. When the leader of the GOP declares that his main aim is to ensure the defeat of the president simply because he represents a different party, the chances for discussion are reduced. Certainly, Congressman Ryan has the benefit of a reputation for seriousness and a body of policy plans that set him apart from other recent candidates for that office, as well as some who sought the upper line on the ticket. But in a world where policies must be defined in a sentence and where the listeners lose attention halfway even then, it's unlikely that this debate will rise to any heights beyond what we heard two years ago when far more time was spent talking about non-existent death panels than discussing the actual provisions of the healthcare law.

There is a good chance that there are aspects of the GOP plan that I would support, and to his credit President Obama has even embraced some of those ideas. I believe the time to raise the retirement age has arrived quite some decades ago - not only has life expectancy increased greatly, but there is no doubt that most people in their mid-sixties are far fitter and more active than their parents were at the same stage of life, and it's ridiculous to cling to that age as though it were somehow sacrosanct. A modest change of just a couple of months or so every year in the retirement age would greatly improve the financial health of our safety net without changing the quality of life for the vast majority of us; for those whose life may leave them less able to work past sixty-five, exceptions are always possible where warranted. But the key to this, as with all other policy changes out there, is for an honest effort by both sides. And that effort is lacking, as evidence when one side opposes their own ideas the moment they are adopted by the other - the individual mandate at the heart of the president's health care reform was actually dreamed up by conservatives eager to provide an alternative to a publicly funded health care system, yet every major GOP member pretended to forget that and opposed health care reform en bloc. Their presumptive candidate for president actually went so far as to forget that his own initiative as a state governor was based on the same tenets - such intellectual dishonesty kills any desire to engage in meaningful debate on matters of substance.

All politicians twist the truth, but the larger number of conservatives today have reached a new level of aversion for reality and honesty. They opposed the economic stimulus proposed by the president in 2009. Now there is a place for disagreement over Keynesian theory for reviving depressed economies, but conservatives reflexively opposed a stimulus package that actually included a clear third in tax cuts - the new mantra for conservatives in the thrall of a schoolboy who seemingly hasn't grown up - and had  significantly less public spending than liberal economists desired, as a
sop to conservatives. This was not a disagreement over policy - since the stimulus package was actually crafted as a compromise - but a craven refusal to accept the right of any other party to govern, no matter the clear electoral mandate. The president, when faced with a mid-term political reversal pledged to listen to what the public had said with their votes; even if that be simply words, as his critics my scornfully say, his opponents have never even whispered the same, much less acted with humility. And can any conversation on national policy be possible without the humility to recognize that others' ideas may have merit?

Optimists may wish, and may build their castles in the air, but if the GOP is in earnest about having a serious policy debate, it's not enough to choose a vice-presidential candidate with a lengthy resume as a wonk, it's about actually engaging in the debate. And that means repudiating many policies that smack of rank partisanship. Would the Romney-Ryan ticket start by clarifying their exact opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and why it needs to be immediately repealed when it's so similar to Romney's own effort in Massachusetts? But really, if they really want this to be about substance over fluff, they could make one easy move that would show their desire to win on the strength of their ideas rather than by any dirty trick - simply call upon their surrogates in the State houses to stop trying to disenfranchise whole swaths of the populace. If they made a simple statement that they believed in the right of every person to vote, and that they were confident of winning because they had a better plan for the country, it may go far in clearing the air and setting the stage for a meaningful discussion on different visions on moving forward. But if they refuse to take that chance, we will have nothing but endless attacks on both sides, and the only voice of sanity left will be a comedian - dare I hope for Stewart/Colbert 2012?

Time for a Web-Redemption

It appears to me that a certain sometimes hilariously funny and sometimes disgusting and unfunny comedian crossed a fairly visible line when he "joked" about gang rape for a woman who heckled him. Now I don't know about the material that prompted the woman in the audience to heckle him though it reportedly also involved facetious remarks about rape that irked that woman, and consequently I have no opinion regarding the appropriateness of that material; but based on the transcript of his response to the woman, I have to say he failed himself, his audience and his fans in every possible way.

When he responded to his heckler with the words "Wouldn't it be funny if that woman were gang raped? Like right now?" he showed a striking lack of decency, and failed on so many levels. Starting with the trivial, he wasn't even funny in his response. Any joke that starts "wouldn't it be funny...?" reveals that the narrator knows there is nothing hilarious to follow, it's a desperate plea to the audience to pretend that the material is funny even when it's not. Let's set aside the more serious issue for just a moment and replace "gang rape" with any other term: "wouldn't it be funny if a meteor fell on that heckler? wouldn't it be funny if the earth opened up and swallowed up that heckler? wouldn't it be funny if that heckler gets cancer and suffers a slow painful death?" - those aren't even remotely funny, because they evoke no humorous image, excite no chord of humorous sympathy. All they do is wish for something horrible to happen to the person who heckled him. He would have been infinitely more funny if he went medieval and cursed the heckler with words like , "I curse you and hope that something mildly inconvenient may happen to you such as an egg falling on your head as you walk under a tree".

But his failings as a comedian are trivial compared to his failings as a member of the human family. Rape is, and has always been about power. It is not about sex or even lust, and never about ordinary physical pleasure but about domination, about one party - usually but not always a man, or group of men - asserting control over another, typically a woman, but also on occasion other men. It is why victorious armies raped the women in conquered cities, a brutal demonstration of their power and domination. It's why homosexual rape is common in prisons, even amongst heterosexuals, far more than in any other setting; lack of heterosexual partners does not drive people into homosexual acts, but the structure of prison society lends itself to that same means of demonstrating power. The threat, and danger of rape is a real and present fear to many women, and that fear is used directly or indirectly to constrain their behavior and deny them the same freedoms as men, as evidenced most recently in the actions of Egyptian police towards women protesters. This is something that this comedian could hardly be unaware of, which makes his decision to joke about rape misplaced at best. When confronted with disapproval, he seems to have lashed out in a cowardly manner, prompted perhaps in part by the knowledge that he was in the wrong but unwilling to acknowledge it or apologize.

Instead he "joked" about the heckler being gang-raped, by his fans in the audience around her. One presumes that he did not mean anyone to act on it, and fortunately nothing untoward ensued, but it was a threat, a naked show of power, a verbalization of the inherent reasons behind physical rape. The nearest analogy I can imagine is for a person with dark skin tone - African or South Asian perhaps -  to be in a meeting of predominantly white people, some of them possibly white supremacists and hear the speaker invite the crowd to lynch the dark guy. I cannot imagine that any woman would feel safe when threatened with gang rape while standing in a crowd of strangers, a majority of them men. For comedian to use his podium to issue such a threat is despicable. It was as naked a threat to his heckler as possible: "shut up and get out of here, or see what happens".

There have been two main arguments in defense of this comedian, by his fans. Firstly, that he was joking, and did not intend anything to happen to the woman. Actually, since there was nothing remotely humorous about his statement, he wasn't; he was simply, and clearly, threatening the woman. Even if it was an empty threat that was never intended to be carried through, it was still a threat - and as Henry IV would attest, words like those have consequences; Henry paid for the unintended consequences of his words, Tosh should at least face up to his mistake and apologize for it. Secondly, some have argued, astoundingly that the woman "asked for it" by heckling him. As I said, I did not see the show, I don't know exactly how it played out - and I can understand that heckling can really irk a stand-up comedian, as Michael Edwards would testify - but the attitude that someone's behavior can justify rape, or the threat thereof is quite simply wrong. Charitably, fans may be suggesting that a heckler is inviting the comedian to retort and react and has no right to be aggrieved if the comedian then jokes about him or her. I would gran that logic if he had made a joke about her, said anything remotely funny about her, even humiliating, depending on whether she was actually heckling him or not. But he didn't - instead he chose to threaten her. Would it be acceptable if he had pulled out a gun and threatened to blow her head off for heckling him? Even that may have been funnier, because it would seem so ridiculously unlikely to actually happen - he actually issued a very thinly veiled and very plausible threat, which is why there was nothing funny about the situation.

Finally, there are questions about the appropriateness of any jokes regarding rape. I did see a brief video clip of Tosh making a "rape joke", about replacing his sister's pepper spray with Silly String, and her getting raped the next night as a consequence. Well, that's not actually a rape joke (I'd say it's not even a funny joke) since one could replace "rape" with "mugged" or car-jacked or any number of crimes, without affecting the premise one bit. But more importantly, rape is about power and domination, and any joke that shifts the balance of power away from the rapist and back to the victim is acceptable, in my opinion. Rapists seek to dominate their victims, and ridiculing the rapists actually erodes their power over their victims and consequently their to hurt; it would empower the victims and help them in reclaiming their lives, which the rapist sought to destroy. It is, in fact analogous to jokes about authoritarian regimes - laughter liberates and shatters the shackles of control, be it the rule of despots or the mental and psychological power exerted by rapists. And comedians have always been in the vanguard of the struggle against the established powers, on the side of the oppressed and weak and against tyranny of the rich and powerful, both religious and secular. The comedian who threatened his fan so vilely should not only apologize to her, he should decide on which side of the line he stands - with the silent masses or their overlords.

Time and Perspective

When the case of Trayvon Martin's shooting at the hands of a Neighborhood Watch volunteer first exploded onto the national news scene a few months ago, as many other like-minded people I saw it as fairly straightforward - a vigilante had shot an unarmed teenager, and there was little more to debate. But I held back from blogging about it, certain that there were many details missing, knowingly or unknowingly omitted or distorted, and willing to wager that with time, the story would twist and turn beyond imagination. Rarely have I been more prescient and never has less ridden on my clairvoyance, and from the horrific 911 calls, to the "eyewitnesses" who offered inconsistent stories and whose eyewitness status was sometimes unclear, to the edited 911 tapes and a plethora of first hazy and then enhanced photos of the shooter, the story seemed to change daily. And the wider story associated with it also changed, from an out-of-control vigilante, to racist shadings, to strange counter campaigns against and in favor of hooded sweatshirts.

All of which showed only one thing, beyond doubt: there is no issue imaginable, that will not be hotly and passionately contested by the right and left wing of the national polity. And whatever position has been staked out by the one side will immediately be opposed by the other, even if their positions represent a diametrically opposite stance from the day before. I was especially disappointed in the tactics employed by the supporters of the slain teen, many of them self-professed liberals. I have, of course, long held that the loudest liberals are anything but and would be better described as leftwingers since they lack a true liberal attitude towards opposing points of view.  The worst was to hear these liberals start arguments with a disclaimer that the shooter's personal life and history were unimportant, and then go on to list all the negative details of that history - an underhanded way to undermine the man's character whilst simultaneously staking claim to a moral high road. Other supporters were even worse, with one person revealing the shooter's home address - no matter what one believes about the man's actions and motives, inviting another vigilante to intervene is unacceptable, and hypocritical. I suppose the Black Panthers make no claims to liberal attitude, and hence their reward for action in the case, while a poorly disguised call to vigilante justice, and reprehensible, at least should not reflect poorly on progressives in general. I would not say that the right-wing supporters of the shooter were any better, but I have never expected much from gun-rights advocates, and I deliberately hold  them to a lower standard than I do liberals.

But while a court will now debate the rights and wrongs of the case against the shooter, the story that unfolded aside from the shooting itself is more interesting and disturbing. The National Rifle Association has long belied its name by advocating for access to all sorts of handguns, and the right to use deadly force in any circumstances. They have succeeded beyond my worst nightmares and it is a testament to their success and tactics that they can still portray themselves as an oppressed group in danger of losing their weapons, even as a man who shot an unarmed teenager walked free after a brief statement to the police. It is also a testament of sorts, but to what I cannot say, that advocates for gun control know that news of an unarmed teenager shot down in his own neighborhood by a private citizen would be met with apathy that they sought to inject racist overtones into the story as the only way to draw support and interest. Indeed, it was the seemingly race-tinged aspects of the case that garnered far more interest nationally than the actual facts - an unarmed teenager, walking home from the store to his soon-to-be stepmother's house crossed paths with a volunteer watchman who consciously chose to precipitate that encounter, and at some point thereafter the teen was shot by the watchman. To any advocate of common-sense gun control, the fact that a teen, or man of any age, can be shot by a person who chose to initiate or at least precipitate the encounter is a tragedy; that the shooter can claim full right to do so under the law is a travesty. But America has drifted backwards to a state of almost mythical Wild West proportions, where every violent act is met with apathy at best, or a clamor for more weapons of violence. There are over fifty thousand homicides every year and half as many accidental deaths, but the merchants of death aver that the secret to less violence is more instruments of violence, more widely distributed amongst the population. Never mind that following in their logic, there was from start to finish only one way the encounter between teen and vigilante could possibly end, if both men were armed, and neither had the duty to deescalate the situation, or avoid a confrontation bullets would fly and one or both men would die, and possibly some people, some bystanders might have been reluctant participants as repositories for some stray bullets as well. It's fairly clear that under most circumstances, arming more people would never result in less violence, only more, but that is a message that may not be spoken today, much less will it be heeded by those who shape our laws.

There is a need in America today to debate issues, in depth and with reason and respect for opposing view points. Unfortunately, this does not happen, and seems ever less likely to happen. I am not looking back with rose-colored glasses, and it's obvious that intolerance of opposing views is hardly new in America or the world in general - Senator Joe McCarthy was not noted for his breadth of acceptance when it came to different political opinions, but what has changed is the medium of deliverance and the time we take to offer an opinion and respond to others' viewpoints. In the world of Demosthenes, it would take weeks, even months for a debate to play out and while the Laconians may have been celebrated for their exceedingly brief style of discussion, in general the lengthy periods between pronunciations left a correspondingly greater time for one to think over both positions and weigh the merits of all views. In a world of short attention spans, debate has been reduced to simply stating one's position in made-for-TV soundbites, devoid of substance and certainly not designed to engage the opposition in any meaningful dialogue. This is true of every topic, from union rights to Wall Street criminal behavior, from environmental protection to national security. And all too often the conversation is taken over by unelected actors, unanswerable to anyone, but possessed of great resources and a passion to thrust their view upon the world. Eschewing all compromise, the only intent appears to be to sweep aside opposition, no matter how reasonable their contrary logic may be or how small the differences may be. Misrepresenting one's opponent's position is a key method of discrediting their actual message and in a political world where citizens choose to get their news from outlets that already share their own positions, a nuanced dialogue is well nigh impossible.

And the Trayvon Martin case has highlighted, all too clearly the deep divides in society. Whether it was outrage that the President expressed empathy with the victim, and the victim's parents, or deplorable attempts to portray the shooter as racist, even to manipulating evidence to "prove" that theory or the intriguing idea that the real culprit in the shooting wasn't the man with the gun but rather the hooded sweatshirt the victim wore, the two sides have consistently talked over one another and done everything in their power to discredit the opposing camp. However, now that the case has been moved to the courts, it's time for everyone to take a deep breath and step back from screaming epithets at each other for a moment. It is interesting that if one simply listens to the other side, there are some reasonable, even cogent ideas that deserve rational scrutiny - perhaps one will reject them anyway after study, but at least study them rather than reject them out-of-hand. 

One issue that comes readily to mind is the rough treatment that one Fox commentator received for suggesting that the real culprit in the whole tragedy was the hooded sweatshirt worn by the victim. No doubt the gentleman was mistaken - the real culprit was the attitudes that drove the confrontation -  but there is nevertheless some truth to his opinion, no matter how poorly expressed. In a media storm where any criticism of the victim can be used to tarnish the speaker with the charge of racism the ugly truth behind his words are ignored. Racism did drive the tragedy, but it was not necessarily the overt racist attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan; rather it was the kind of almost subconscious thinking that tinges our every action with racist overtones whether we know it or not. Racism is not a simple "black vs white" or "white vs everyone else" story - every ethnic group is guilty to different levels (ask the average Chinese or Japanese person about the other, and there may be attitudes that would make the Grand Wizard ashamed). We, who pride ourselves on having risen above racial stereotyping need to only ask ourselves about how we'd react to meeting a group of African American teenagers in sweathshirts and drooping pants as against meeting, say, Chinese kids in similar attire. For myself, I know that I am infinitely more nervous around an all white group of bikers than any of my white co-workers would be - I do not consider myself an overt racist (though I don't pretend for a moment that I have risen past prejudice) but I still project my deep-hidden racially-driven fears onto a group I know nothing about and that fear fuels my reaction to them. When a person embraces a culture that furthers a dangerous stereotype - the hoodies, the faux chains and beltless pants around their knees that bespeak a gangster - it only furthers the unconscious reaction in the people around. The overzealous captain was very likely not driven by any racist beliefs, but his actions may well have been subtly influenced by racial bias all the same. While I would still demand that he answer for his actions, I do not believe that he should be libeled as a racist, not for a bias that not only lingers in even the most liberal and progressive of us, and which is constantly reinforced overtly and covertly through every media around us daily.

In the run-up to the last presidential election, Barack Obama delivered a landmark speech on race relations, effortlessly straddling the deep divide between the more conservative views on either side of the racial line. This would be a good time for a new speech addressing the less obvious divide between even middle of the road members of every racial and ethnic group. Meanwhile, as the Florida legal system prepares to try the man at the center of the tragedy, we would all be better served if we spent less time judging the principal actors and more time addressing our own inadequacies and  in the words of Polonious, "Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act...Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment." If there is one mistake that the shooter himself would admit, it would be hasty judgement based on superficial understanding and incomplete information, and it led to a tragic killing. Rushing to emulate that mistake would serve us no better.

Evolving on Equality - It Does Get Better

This past week, the political world was abuzz with the news that the Obama Administration has finally decided its position on the rights of gays and now supports their right to be treated exactly the same as everyone else. Not surprisingly their political opponents have taken a diametrically opposite position, underscored by a lopsided vote in North Carolina to amend their state constitution to deny homosexuals their rights to equality. They have also suggested that the President may have been trapped into this position by the premature admissions of Vice President Biden or that this was just a cynical ploy to mollify their wealthy day donors.

Cynicism is nothing new in politics, and usually is the safer bet on underlying motives. But one cannot have it both ways. President Obama is accused, with some justification, of flipfloping on the issue, dating back to a 1996 statement in favor of equality followed by a more conservative stance as he moved into the limelight, but is also  accused simultaneously of Machiavellian duplicity while being caught unawares by Biden's public statements. The reality is likely more mundane, a case of the President being caught somewhat by surprise but when faced with a clear choice, going with his better instincts and choosing liberal belief in equality over outdated fears and prejudices.

No one, save the President and perhaps his closest confidants can answer truly to his motives. But his words are instructive. And I can understand the ambivalence of a liberal on the subject, prey as I am to my own doubts and questions. On a purely rational level, my mind understands the absolute right of any two consenting adults to marry, and I can easily understand that a stable and loving home is the important requirement in raising children, not the gender of the parents. Judged purely as a matter of rights and equality, there is simply no debate, and as an agnostic atheist, religious mores do not constrain my views in any way. But while the rational part of my brain may be accepting, the visceral reaction, the emotional response to the sight of two men kissing is far less liberal. I'm ashamed to admit that deep down, my more conservative upbringing can still trump the liberal views developed later and in  a more thoughtful way, and in that respect, I think both President Obama and Vice President Biden are far ahead of me.

It is not comfortable to know that I cannot live up to the ideals I espouse and that I know to be right. I know that gays have the same rights as I or any other person, that to deny them a right we take for granted, the right to affirm their love and commitment to their partner is unjust and indefensible. But all knowledge in the world cannot overcome a powerful feeling of unease or discomfort when faced with the actual case. The discomfort is obviously irrational - after all, I feel absolutely no unease in the sight of two attractive women kissing, and I'd venture to say that given the success of such porn movies as "Where the Boys Aren't" a very large number of American men, including a majority of frat brothers and some red-blooded conservative, share my comfort level with lesbian sex as voyeuristic pleasure. If Portia di Rossi was the face of the campaign for equality, instead of Elton John or Andrew Sullivan, it would be comparatively easy to put aside the doubts and wholeheartedly endorse gay marriage. But life is messier than Hallmark cards, and people come in all shapes and sizes and they all deserve the same rights, irrespective of their resemblance to the covers of Vogue.

President Obama made a telling comment when he talked about his views evolving as he saw openly gay people working on his staff and that influenced his feelings, especially his comfort with them. Just a few decades ago, the blink of an eye in human history, people were as uncomfortable with interracial relationships. It was only as personal contact with people of different races grew that the prejudices fell away. One can see the same process at work again, as we are exposed to more homosexuals and we see that they are really just like us, and that this old world of ours will keep on turning just the same the day after we evolve to a more enlightened state. Vice President Biden by embracing his better self has proved that deep rooted prejudices can be overcome once we open our eyes and our minds, President Obama may have had less distance to travel ideologically  than his deputy, but has shown that not only is it possible to have a deep gulf between what one knows to be right and what one can comfortably accept as right and normal - I can only hope that I can grow as well as they have. And for all those who like I are conflicted between the reactions of mind and heart, or those who still cling to their fears and prejudices, it may help to realize that this is ultimately not about us granting gays their rights to be treated equally - that is going to happen - but about us having the courage to grow and evolve to a higher, freer and better place. It does get better, but not just for gays facing persecution, but for all of us.

The Myth of Health Insurance

By this time, the Supreme Court has decided the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Law, though we may not know what that is till summer. But whether the law stands or falls, whether the individual mandate that requires every person to have health insurance or pay a penalty or tax, whether Congress interpreted the Commerce Clause accurately or not, the fact is that the basic premise of the US health care system is flawed and the current fix is only temporary, little more than a Band-Aid and less use.

Numerous commentators have pointed out that the model that requires employers to provide health insurance to their workers is an outdated idea that greatly constrains the freedom and flexibility of the workforce on one hand while imposing a huge financial burden on the employer on the other, while providing less value for money spent than nearly any other comparably advanced nation and yet also leaving vast number of people without comprehensive medical coverage. The cost to the employer is uniquely American, and leaves local companies at a competitive disadvantage to companies in other advanced nations that do not have that cost on their books at all; the actual accuracy of that argument could be debated, but that's for another day and for now it is sufficient and accurate enough to agree that US companies pay for their employees' medical care unlike their competition in other countries.  There have been interesting discussions on the logic of taxing or not taxing the employee contribution and whether the employer contribution, usually much more than the individuals' should be treated as the individual's income or not. There is also vigorous debate about the need for pooled risk, shared costs and the wellness programs thrust upon the unwilling. But all these debates, while important ignore the fundamental flaw in the US health care model. This model is based on health insurance and we no longer are buying insurance.

Let me expand my thesis: insurance, in the succinct definition provided by Wikipedia, is is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss.  Like any good definition, every word is important, none less than the terms "risk management" and "contingent uncertain loss". Let us for a moment hark back to the simpler times when health insurance was first introduced  - it was not intended to cover every dollar one spent on health care; in fact most doctor's fees and medicines were paid for out of pocket and insurance was meant to cover those catastrophic events that strike a small number of people, say an unexpected hospitalization just after one had raided the rainy day savings for a down payment on a house. Since only some people need to use their insurance, and since only a small number of people would tap into the insurance company at any given time, the basic insurance model worked. This model has been with us for several centuries now, dating back to the times of European explorer's of the New World and Africa, and the model has not changed fundamentally since then: the insured party pays a premium periodically that over time will exceed the amount the insurer would pay out in claims. Certainly the occasional untimely event might skew the ratio against the insurer, but in general we pay more than we collect. If we didn't, the business model would be unsustainable. When the insurer collects less than the insured amount, he still stays ahead by invoking the probabilities of  groups and pooled risk, meaning of course, that he still collects more from the group than he pays back to the group, even if a few individuals collect more than they pay in.

But when you consider the way health care and the way we pay for it has evolved over the last few decades in the US, it becomes obvious that the insurance model is no longer valid or sustainable. We now may all medical costs from our health insurance, with very few items covered out of our own funds. Not that we have much choice with the high, even ridiculously high cost of medical care, though again the value of medical care needs to be debated in full at some point, at another time and place. Combined with the increasing life span of the average person, and it rapidly becomes obvious that the insurance companies simply cannot fulfill their role anymore. But rather than admit that health insurance as we know it is a dead concept, they have ingeniously invented a vast array of means to stay ahead of the cost curve: rescission, preexisting conditions, gap in coverage, lifetime cap on expenses, false information on the clownishly impossible to understand forms - these are some of the tools and tricks used to deny insurance claims and ensure that they still collect more from the insured party than they pay out. The fact is, if insurance companies tried to fulfill the implied promise to their clients, they would be paying out much more than they collected.

Looking at it another way, the insurance model is based on the insured party probably not having a claim under their policy. How many times do you get into an auto accident? How often does your house burn down? How many times in a year do you get attacked by Martians? And there was a time when medical insurance worked the same way. Today however, it's a given that nearly every person will require expensive medical care, the kind that can be covered only by their insurance company; the small number who don't are those who sudden and quick, and for most part untimely early deaths. The rest of us will be tapping into that insurance pool without a doubt, clinging on to life till the money runs out. There is no management of risk left for the insurance company when the "uncertain contingent event" has become a certainty.

As I see it, the model we have is unsustainable. We may stretch it out a little longer, the insurance companies will find more imaginative ways to deny us our claims. But to be fair to the corporations, they are not people (with due apologies to the Supreme Court); they are in business solely to make a profit, not practice charity and compassion. And in the end, no matter how we slice and dice the question, insurance simply does not work if every insured party wants an unlimited coverage for an indefinite period of time, or will be cripplingly more expensive than anything we've imagined hitherto. Like it or not, the time for health insurance is past, and whatever the replacement, it must needs be based on a different mathematical model.

The Destruction of Sennacherib

Ever since the protests against Assad's regime spiraled out of control, I've been following developments with anticipation. I have to admit I've always had a sneaking partiality for Syria. While their government is undoubtedly ruthless and frequently brutal, they are also in a way the mutts of the Middle East, beloved of no one, with little oil wealth to attract suitors and a history of embarrassing defeats at the hands of Israel, able to play a major role in Lebanon yet rarely respected by friend or foe. When Bashir Assad succeeded his father, there was a brief hope that he would play the reformer so rarely seen in that corner of the world. Yet in the end, he proved to be neither the redeemer of his people nor the iron-handed autocrat Hafeez Assad was; unwilling to react with overt violence when challenged, yet also unwilling to make a truly bold decision, on Lebanon, Sheba Farms, the Golan Heights or eventually the protests against his regime. A part of me hopes that he will somehow find the courage and statesmanship to end the violence in his land and against his own people in an honorable manner but the realist in me knows that Assad has never been that man and that Syria is headed down the same path as Libya and Yemen.

But what really struck me in the aftermath of the Security Council's failure to act pass a resolution against Damascus was the strange reaction in the United States, with even such realists as Hilary Clinton deploring the inability of the Council and many pundits seeing a diminishing of the United Nations Organization in the wake of Russia and China's veto. This seems like a very shallow response and almost willfully ignorant of both history and cold reality. It's worth recalling that in the first four decades of its existence, the UN was able to pass a resolution authorizing the use of force against a nation once, and that action against North Korea was possible because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council and China's vote was still controlled by the Kuomintang. The next couple of decades saw plenty of resolutions brought before the Council condemning actions in various parts of the world, yet few passed and none resulted in UN intervention. The Council was powerless when Soviet troops crushed the hopes of revolution in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. This was no one way street, with the US wielding its own veto in turn to ensure no censure of its action against Libya in 1986 or Grenada in 1982, and extending the shelter of its power to Israel on numerous occasions. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union did we see an unmatched level of cooperation in the United Nations, fostered in part by a controlled reaction on the part of the victors, the United States and a certain deference in China. However as the relative power of each nation changes, China is becoming just a little more assertive of its own interests.

And understanding the interests of the different players is key to understanding the ways to win their cooperation and furthering our own plans. Our childish reaction to the UN refusal to do the right thing is not just counterproductive, it's also self-defeating. We see our desire to stop the bloodshed in Syria as a just and noble cause. However, as one expert on Democracy Now explained very clearly last night, the Assad regime and its Alawite supporters will fight to cling to power with every weapon they have because defeat for them will mean exile at best (and no one around them really wants them) and bloody annihilation at the hands of the liberated majority at worst. In practical terms then, ending the bloodshed is really a euphemism for replacing the current authoritarian setup in Syria with something more palatable to its people, be it a more inclusive and democratic government or a wholesale replacement of the Baath Party. A kindly view of our interests would be that we have the needs of the Syrian people at heart; but our anguish over the bloody struggle is a contrast to our far less voluble interest in other places and peoples under violent oppression. we've stood fairly silently while our client regimes in Central Asia deny their people rights, we've clucked about the violence in Dafur but made few attempts to push through any real change there, and we've been mostly silent behind-the-scenes actors in places like Bahrain and Kuwait. Little wonder then that other nations look askance at our aims in moving a Security Council resolution on Syria that will likely lead to the end of the Assad regime.

When we obtained UN clearance to protect the population in Libya from Gadhafi's wrath, Russia and China were not excited at the latitude that we interpreted in applying that authority. Syria has been a long term ally of Russia, and Putin faces a skeptical electorate this year - he cannot afford to be seen letting an old client and ally get run out of town while he stands helplessly by. Iran, no Great Power in its own right since the days of Cyrus  the Great, nevertheless has pressing interests of its own in Syria. Should Assad's government fall, the new regime will be dominated by Sunnis either religious or secular (most likely the former) but unlikely to be as pliant an ally to Iran or as friendly a patron to Hezbollah. And Iran needs Hezbollah as a key check to Israel, and by extension they then need Assad's government in Damascus. While any new government is likely to be less than cordial to Israel, the turmoil of a revolution and the far more urgent issues thereafter would greatly ease the threat on Israel's northeastern border, and that runs counter to Iran's interests.

China has it's own interests in keeping a very elaborate system of checks and balances in place. Hezbollah is a check on an Israeli strike against Iran, and Iran consumes much of America's attention and resources, especially when they make threats about closing the Straits of Hormuz. There is nothing China would like more than America's attention to fixed firmly on the Middle East, delaying the pivot to the Pacific and giving China a bit more time to improve their position along the western rim. Syria is the key to the complex order, and keeping their regime afloat is then in the interests of nearly everyone else not allied with us. China may well see action on Syria as a harbinger of things to come for their own client in Khartoum; if the logic works at Homs, why not in Dafur?

One hopes that  our policy experts advising the President have thought through the conflicting aims of all parties with an interest in Syria and realized that we lost at the Security Council because we asked the rest of the world to set aside their own interests in favor of ours. (It matters little whether we saw toppling Assad as good for Israel and Lebanon; our actions were judged by the potential outcomes, not our stated reasons). We make this mistake over and over and always seem surprised when others see us a bully; we brushed aside the Kyoto Protocol, we invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein. In part we seem to actually believe our claim that we are acting with purely altruistic motives (or imperative interests), and of course ignore all evidence to the contrary, a dangerous blindness that makes it harder to win skeptics to our side. And win we could if we would frame the discussion in terms that appeal to our opponents. Easing the Assad regime aside is critical, not just because of its crimes against its own people (and let's be real, many outsiders perceive us as just as brutal and ruthless, and perception is as important as reality in this case) but because of the massive refugee problem that would result from the violent overthrow of that regime and the instability that would follow, not just in the delicately balanced neighboring states (northern Iraq with its existing and restive Assyrian minority, Jordan with its fragile balance of Palestinians and Bedouins, Lebanon with a explosive ethnic mix - none of these would wish to see their current problems exacerbated by tens of thousands of Syrian refugees) but the same concerns resonate farther afield too as oil markets are thrown into chaos and the still damaged world economy is battered afresh. Keeping the world stable and spinning is of paramount importance to China, and some deft diplomacy would go a long way to placating their opposition; less heated rhetoric about the Chinese threat would not be amiss either.

But perhaps most importantly we need to heed Polonius' advice, not just in keeping our costume only as costly as our purse can bear, but also in being true to our own self. Our actions are rarely as altruistic as we believe, and we are never as angelic as we claim, and to pretend otherwise is only an exercise in delusion and a sign of extreme naivete or most Machevillian deception to the rest of the world watching us without rose-cored glasses; neither perception furthers our interests. From warring with the Barbary corsairs to protect our trade routes, to standing by while Saudi tanks arrived to protect  Bahrain's king from his protesting population, selfishness and self-interest have always guided our actions; we should not be surprised when others do the same.

The Ministry of Peace

In George Orwell's famous "1984", government has been simplified into three ironically named Ministries, with the unending war overseen by the "Ministry of Peace". There was a time in the not so recent past when nations were fairly honest about calling that organization their "War Ministry" (England) or "War Department" (USA). At some point however, after the end of the Second World War, Orwellian thinking crept in, and even as the US prepared to engage the world on battlefields far removed from her shores, it was decided that such distasteful matters be handled by a more benign sounding "Defense Department"; defense of one's homeland after all could not be faulted by the most ardent peaceniks, not even when it involved bombing countries on the far side of the world.

Now, for the second time in two decades, the US is contemplating a major reduction in its defense budget. While the last significant cuts were a peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, they were succeeded by a huge build-up in military forces after the September 11 attacks and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and ever increasing involvement in conflicts in Arabia, East Africa, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. The latest round of budget cuts are necessitated by a somber realization that we can no longer afford that heady binge of war spending when our debt is spiraling out of control and nearly every other sector of government is being cut past the bone. But while we may no longer be able to afford such a grandiose war machine, the proposed cuts have nevertheless drawn cries of anguish from many quarters.

It's tempting to dismiss such opposition as nothing more or less than the protests of those who benefit from the military-industrial complex, those with a vested financial in continued war spending, but that would be as much a knee-jerk reaction as the worst of theirs. Rather it is worth asking some hard questions of ourselves, starting with the seven hundred billion question: if a war budget that exceeds one third of the entire world's military spending leaves us feeling so insecure about our safety that even modest cuts provoke such anxiety, is it worth the expenditure at all?

According to GlobalSecurity.org, we not only are the world's highest spender by far, we exceed the next SIX countries combined; once you remove neutral (Sweden, Switzerland, Brazil etc) and friendly (NATO and other European allies, Canada, South Korea, Japan) countries from the list, our spending exceeds the next THIRTY FIVE nations on the list! And yet, I saw an article today that our ability to fight more than one war will be seriously compromised if Obama's proposed restructuring is implemented. In which universe do we expect to actually engage in more than one major war of necessity? And when we talk of wars of necessity, that's hawkishly including the invasion of Afghanistan in that category, a war that was about revenge far more than it was about defending our nation or our national interests. When the military introduced the concept of preparing for two simultaneous wars, they had a plausible if unlikely scenario in mind: a Soviet invasion of western Europe and a North Korean attack across the 38th Parallel. In both places, we had commitments to defend our allies, a national interest in maintaining the security of those places and forces in harm's way, and would feel the need to fight those wars. Today, only the delusional would imagine that we need to game for an open war with Russia - they aren't about to invade western Europe and we have few actual interests in checking Russia's moves against former Soviet republics. To put it bluntly, we have commitments there only insofar as we seek them out by trying to expand our influence in those areas.

North Korea does remain a danger, theoretically, but our forces in South Korea would be insufficient to defeat an invasion. Much of the heavy fighting would have to be done by our ally, till we could get a reinforcing army into action, or alternately seek to slow the North Koreans through air and naval power. Significantly, those are the two branches of the military that would see some increases under Obama's plan. The only other ally that might face a military threat is Taiwan, but for decades it has been obvious that the only way we could defend Taiwan was by naval and air power and the deterrent of our missile system. Again, the reduced defense budget would enhance rather than reduce our capabilities.

In other words, we have little need for an army that's able to fight two wars at one time. The only other war being credibly considered is Iran, but the idea of a land force actually invading Iran is ludicrous. Not only did we find that controlling a smaller nation like Iraq to be more than we wanted, we had the advantage of land routes into the country for our invasion force (two routes till poor planning and diplomacy deprived us of the route from Turkey).  In case of Iran we would have to fight our way ashore with no easy staging area with both Iraq and Pakistan unlikely to offer us assistance, while likely fighting a naval battle to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. While there is no question that the US military can do it, the cost would be high, and the deeper we thrust into Iran the higher the cost - Iran's army may be no match for the US, but it is not as crippled by sanctions as Iraq's was, and their military planners have probably studied the successes of the Saddam Fedayeen in Iraq (the most serious obstacle during our invasion of Iraq) and Hezbollah in their fight with Israel in 2006 . On the heels of two costly and somewhat unsuccessful ventures on either side of Iran, it's almost unthinkable that we would actually attempt a ground invasion; if we did we'd need far more troops than we have even today, prior to any cuts. What that means is that any conflict with Iran will be fought from a distance.


The biggest change proposed in the military is the reduction in Army manpower, and a pivot away from nation building and stabilizing abilities. And that seems like an excellent plan. If we were to assume for a moment that the Army was going to be used in such a role in the near future, which troubled region would we choose? Yemen? Somalia? Dafur? Syria? Pakistan? There is no political will to occupy any of those regions, and no guarantee that such action would contribute in any way to an improvement in their situation. And even should the will exist, which would we choose? How would we choose just one (assuming that we'd still maintain our fighting capability in South Korea) when all of them demand equal response? Rather we will follow our far safer approach of support from beyond the borders, as in Libya or through a military surrogate, like Ethiopia and Kenya in Somalia currently.

Given the near unique position enjoyed by the US, with no hostile neighbors and self-sufficiency or secure sources of all vital resources, it is really amazing that we are proposing so modest a reduction in our war budgets. Attempting to resolve all our challenges and confront all dangers alone and with force is way beyond the capability of our military, even currently. Our better approach would be to evaluate exactly what our vital interests are - perhaps keeping open trade routes through the Strait of Hormuz and the Malacca Straits, abd around the Horn of Africa and - and then working to achieve those aims without force. Keeping a big enough stick handy may be a good idea if all else fails, but carrots can win the same results and are often cheaper. And it's worth remembering that all we need is a big stick not a giant club that may be to heavy to wield and may only end up injuring ourselves.