A Reply to Professor Brandon's Defense

Professor Brandon, Serious and mature discussion of an issue does not involve implying that one's opponents are "stupid," let alone by committing a gross logical fallacy (the distributive fallacy of composition [1]) as you do in your seriously intentioned "joke."

The graver fallacy that you're committing here is "red herring." The subject of this debate is not academic indoctrination (that is merely a potential negative consequence of what is being discussed), but diversity in the faculty being regarded as a -inherently- good thing for the academy, where -racial- diversity is seen to be a positive goal to be achieved while -intellectual- diversity is eschewed.* In its most gross and offensive form, this attitude assumes that diversity of skin color EQUALS diversity of thought, which is a patently racist attitude. Happily, your fallacious statements put you out of that class of arguers, since, for you, diversity of thought is "stupid" for "white" academics as well.

Finally, your comparison of the sciences and the humanities is fallacious on categorical grounds. For the sake of argument, I'll consider your red herring. While ideological indoctrination is not unknown in science (as your erstwhile colleagues in the English Department used to "bloviate" about), the subject matter of mathematics and its method is not a subject of debate -within its own discipline.- A putative Lysenko of mathematics would be put down by his own leftist "allies" as a destructive influence.

The same is not true in those disciplines which deal with the humanities, where discussions of values and political and philosophical positions have precedence. It is there that a diversity of views in the faculty about the pertinent aspects of the disciplines would have prima facie desirability. This is the substantive point at issue.

Yours truly,

Ernest Brown

(1) http://www.cuyamaca.net/bruce.thompson/Fallacies/distributive.asp

* It has to be noted here that Horowitz and company are -not- arguing that since there is a lack of intellectual diversity on campus, there should be no racial diversity either. Rather, their argument is that the primary purpose of the academy is to inculcate ideas and critical thinking skills, and thus intellectual diversity exemplified by qualified faculty members of all races, creeds and beliefs should be the aim of academia.

Correction to my original post there, I am currently not in grad school, but I plan to return this fall.

"History's greatest monster"-it's not a joke

The Pharisee from Plains vents his anti-Semitism openly in the N.Y. Times (registration required)

"Mr. Carter, when asked in an interview whether the absence of progress so many years after Camp David was bittersweet for him, replied, "It's not bittersweet, just sweet."

But then his frustration over twists in history and missed opportunities spilled out. "The bitterness comes from the fact that the top leaders have not been willing to move with this degree of effort," he said.

Mr. Carter, defeated in his quest for re-election by Ronald Reagan in 1980, speculated that "had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a -final solution."- (endquote)

What would that "final solution" have entailed?

From Jay Nordlinger's article "You Didn’t Ask for It, You Got It: Carterpalooza!" Arabs are heavy-duty funders of the Carter Center, and they get a lot for their money.

No one quite realizes just how passionately anti-Israel Carter is. William Safire has reported that Cyrus Vance acknowledged that, if he had had a second term, Carter would have sold Israel down the river. In the 1990s, Carter became quite close to Yasser Arafat. After the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia was mad at Arafat, because the PLO chief had sided with Saddam Hussein. So Arafat asked Carter to fly to Riyadh to smooth things over with the princes and restore Saudi funding to him — which Carter did.

You who read Impromptus have heard me say: When I was growing up, I perceived the Arab-Israeli conflict as a great civil-rights drama. The white oppressors were the Israelis, and the black sufferers and innocents were the Arabs, in particular the Palestinians. Menachem Begin, I thought, was George C. Wallace, and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, was Bull Connor. (This was in the early ’80s.)

Well, blow me down. I had never heard anybody else — a soul — say anything like this. But here is Carter, to Douglas Brinkley, Carter’s biographer and analyst: “The intifada exposed the injustice Palestinians suffered, just like Bull Connor’s mad dogs in Birmingham.”

The Carter-Nordlinger axis rides again (but, hang on, I’ve changed my mind — had “an evolution of thought,” as we say).

In The Unfinished Presidency, Brinkley writes, “There was no world leader Jimmy Carter was more eager to know than Yasir Arafat.” The former president “felt certain affinities with the Palestinian: a tendency toward hyperactivity and a workaholic disposition with unremitting sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, decade after decade.” Neat, huh?

At their first meeting — in 1990 — Carter boasted of his toughness toward Israel, assuring Arafat at one point, “. . . you should not be concerned that I am biased. I am much more harsh with the Israelis.” Arafat, for his part, railed against the Reagan administration and its alleged “betrayals.” Rosalynn Carter, taking notes for her husband, interjected, “You don’t have to convince us!” Brinkley records that this “elicited gales of laughter all round.” Carter himself, according to Brinkley, “agreed that the Reagan administration was not renowned as promise keepers” (this, to Arafat).

If you are sickened by the thought of a former U.S. president and a former First Lady of the United States and the career terrorist Yasser Arafat all sitting around bashing Ronald Reagan . . . you and I think alike.

The fact that they found it amusing to laugh it up with the man who planned the assassination of a U.S. ambassador says everything that you need to know about the filthy Uriah Heep that once was a U.S. President. Although he falsely claims that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a hero of his, Carter just keeps urinating and projectile vomiting on the memory and legacy of the great anti-Nazi theologian.

UPDATE: Let me make this point, while I doubt (hope?) that Jimmy the Dhimmi is not actually advocating genocide, I believe that he DELIBERATELY used the term "final solution" with regard to Israel out of the foulness and evil of his heart to cause pain and anger in those who support the Israeli right to exist as a nation. It's a more "refined" version of the Loony Liberal/Left's filthy "Zionazi" libel. Just to make it clear that I am not "cherry-picking," I include some commentary from one of Jimmy's fellow Democrats:

Jimmy Carter Still Doesn't Understand Israel Ed Koch August 3, 2001 Newsday

FORMER President Jimmy Carter betrayed his ongoing hostility toward Israel when he criticized President George W. Bush's policy on the Mideast in a newspaper interview last week.

"My policy, as was all the other presidents' until Clinton, was that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza were both illegal and an obstacle to peace....George Sr. took a very strong position on that issue, as did I," Carter said.

In 1980, the United States supported a UN Security Council resolution denouncing Israel for its "occupation" of East Jerusalem, which was won in the 1967 war. Heading into a tough national election against Ronald Reagan and desperate to keep the Jewish vote he had alienated, Carter asked that I come to the White House. At lunch, Carter told me he had been unaware of the language in the UN resolution regarding Jerusalem and asked if I could help reassure his Jewish supporters.

"Mr. President," I said, "the Jews for 2,000 years have had people sell them out. There isn't a country on the world's face today except for the United States that hasn't at one point cast its Jews out. When Shakespeare wrote 'The Merchant of Venice,' there wasn't a Jew in England. The Jews had been expelled 300 years before." "I didn't know that," he said.

"And what they see, Mr. President, is that in the one country which has consistently given them support, the support has eroded." I suggested he hold a press conference and take questions. In his statement, Carter called the Security Council vote "a genuine mistake" due to a "breakdown in communications." He blamed his UN ambassador, Donald McHenry, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance for not keeping him informed. Indeed, McHenry later said he read the language on Jerusalem to the president before the vote.

Carter should have known the Israeli settlements on the West Bank and Gaza are not illegal under international law. They are designated by the U.S. State Department as simply "impediments to peace." In any ultimate peace settlement, they are bargaining chips. The Israeli government maintains that, since Jordan never had legal sovereignty over the West Bank, and Egypt never had legal sovereignty in Gaza, these areas are not "occupied territories" under international law. Further, Israel retained control over them for self-defense.

As we got closer to the general election, Carter needed me to campaign in the Florida condos where many Jewish retirees lived. I told Carter's emissary, Hamilton Jordan, if the president wanted my help, he would have to announce that future UN resolutions on Israel were to be even- handed or they would be vetoed. The next day, the president issued a statement on U.S. policy toward Israel: "We will withdraw from the Assembly if Israel is expelled. We oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Henceforth, flawed resolutions on Israel at the United Nations will be vetoed, not simply abstained on. We will pledge not to sell Saudi Arabia bomb racks for its F-15 planes." There is an ongoing effort by Saudi Arabia's supporters and other Arab nations to change the U.S. foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel, making it more favorable to the Arab states and Palestinians in exchange for oil, commercial contracts and military alliances. Leading the charge are former Presidents Carter and George H.W. Bush. The elder Bush called Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, a vocal critic of the current Bush administration's support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"His heart is in the right place," the elder Bush reportedly said of his son, adding that the president was "going to do the right thing." To George W. Bush's credit, he has resisted his father's importuning to turn against Israel.

The Israeli government will and must protect the security of its people, even in the face of condemnation from former presidents and bystander nations who covet Arab oil and contracts.

In 1980, I agreed to campaign for Carter. Reporters asked why, in view of his record on Israel, I was in Miami on his behalf. "He's changed his position," I said.

"Why do you believe him?" a reporter asked me. "If he lied to me, he should rot in hell," I replied.

That afternoon's New York Post carried my warning on its front page. Carter lied then and he lies now. If there is a God with memory, and I believe there is, Jimmy Carter will find it hot down there.

Amen to that, Ed.

Amen to that...

Again, Anime Anima

This time she's trapped on the astral plane in deadly combat with the foul soul of Ted Rall

The Comicsblogger returns

The never-ending saga of Anime Anima's revulsion at Chomsky's self-lobotomy continues!

The Reason for Inexcusable Casualties

Fred Kaplan at Slate posted a chilling story Friday which served as a grim prophecy of yesterday's highly avoidable shoot-down. For now, I'll just say that the prejudice against human intelligence gathering (HUMINT) in both the armed forces AND the CIA in favor of signal intelligence (SIGINT) is going to get more people killed.

Inexcusable Casualties

Rantburg has news and commentary on the Chinook shootdown near Fallujah. My giant, economy-sized question is -why- are unescorted, thin-skinned helis like Chinooks flying over the Iraqi "bandit country" during a state of high terror alert? The Army needs to get the brass's heads out of their collective fundaments and start reading the Marine's "Little War" manual instanter, or there will be more needless deaths like this.

Sweden puts thumbs down on the Euro, thanks France!

The Swedish electorate has voted to reject the Euro, due in no small part to France's EU scofflawry. It's a good blow for freedom against the Kafkaesque hellhole bureaucracy that the Union represents, and one can only hope that it is the first step in destroying that abominable institution.

The IN LOCO PARENTIS Show

In addition to the tragic events of this week, we have seen the disgraceful efforts of so-called world leaders to avoid the consequences of their actions.

First, Kofi Annan whined that the U.S. should have forced(!) the U.N. Mission in Iraq to accept stepped-up security, even though their own spokesmen admitted that American forces DID offer to provide additional protection, but were turned down because UNO didn't want to be seen accepting help from the evil 'Merikuns. (although not, as it appears, their old Baathist handlers!) Contrast this with Kofi's desire to tool around Manhatten with sub-machine gun equipped bodyguards, and you'll see the priorities that the United Nations bureaucracy truly values. There was also a great deal of "Why do they hate us (the U.N.)?" rhetoric thrown around. Well, seeing as Al Queda had repeatedly stated that they regarded the liberation of Christian East Timor from Islamic Indonesian control as a dreadful defeat for Dar al Islam, and that the head of the Iraq mission was was the U.N. official responsible for said defeat, the picture becomes clear for those with enough wit to connect the dots. The Islamists are not just opposed to the existence of Israel out of simple anti-Semitism (which they share with their European apologists), but because it is an example of Europeans retaking an area previously dominated by Islam. Their imperialistic ambitions cannot abide this, which is also why they keep whining about Andalusia (Spain!) over five centuries after the fall of Grenada.

Regressives in denial like Noam Chomsky might want to ignore the imperialistic nature of radical Islamism, but those leftists who actually LIVE in countries where it is a political threat know better. I am amused by those individuals who advocate -increased- U.N. control over Iraq, since the UN couldn't even stop looting in their own cafeterias!

Annan couldn't top the ultimate example of pathetic carelessness this month, namely the near-complete abandonment of the elderly of Northern France to die like roasted pigs in nursing homes and attic garretts. When a blackout struck an area larger than Northern France, affecting over 50 million people, the Northeastern U.S. saw unprecedented drops in crime, citizens pitching in to direct traffic and assist each other and no looting (unlike our Canadian friends). Contrast this with the utter indifference to the heat deaths by the French government and population and one comes to the conclusion that our criminal classes are more public-spirited than the average Pierre. Of course, M. le Presidente Chirac was all condemnation from -his- vacation spot in cool, cool Quebec. He couldn't be bothered to actually return to his post and deal with the crises until after spending three weeks with his buddy (the Cretin), for, like the rest of the Gauls, to him the August holiday is more sacred than family ties or human life itself. These are the creeps lecturing -us- on political morality.

If we are to draw a moral from these events, it is that the mentality that casts off moral responsibility onto government for what should be individual efforts, either of cognition (as in the U.N. example) or of protection and care (for France) is ultimately a deadly one. As we have seen over and over again, those who advocate the elimination of individual freedom and responsibility in favor of governmental or organizational collectivism are the first to hide behind such collectivity to avoid responsibility for negative outcomes. Gee, I wonder if there is any connection between the former and the latter?

The Left Fails(?) its Rorschach Test

Steven Den Beste's article on the Bush administration's justifications for going to war is comprehensive enough, but the substance behind it can be summarized as Bush & Co. being audacious enough to use the classical counter-insurgency tactic of "inkblotting" on an international scale:

Not all U.S. COIN efforts failed outright or succeeded through barbarism. U.S. Marine Corps forces in the mountainous northernmost area of South Vietnam, for example, pursued a COIN strategy combining local and highly motivated (but poorly trained and equipped) villagers with direct support from U.S. Marine combat platoons. These combined action platoons (or CAPs) operated on an "inkblot" principle: Secure a village or hamlet, then patrol out in widening circles until intersecting with another CAP's secured area. The strategy had two major disadvantages, however. First, although it protected South Vietnamese citizens from immediate danger of terror attacks by VC guerrillas, it could achieve success only in the long term--and time favored the VC. 74 Second, although militarily effective, CAP success only highlighted the inability of the South Vietnamese government to protect its own citizens. "How the Weak Win Wars A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict" Ivan Arregui'n-Toft International Security 26.1 (2001) 93-128

This is the counter-insurgency strategy that has historically paid some of the highest dividends. (cf. our experience in Latin America in the 1920's and 30's, the British in the Malaysian emergency of 1948-60) It relies on undermining the enemy's base over the long term, and convincing the majority in the affected area that the irregulars are a more of a long-term threat than the regular forces. As Arregui'n-Toft notes above, if the population does -not- get the impression that there is hope at the local/national political level, then the strategy fails. The successful example of Malaysia backs up his point.

By flanking hostile powers (Iran & Syria, with Saudi Arabia as a bonus) with the secure bases in Iraq and Afganistan that we have won at comparatively little cost to both ourselves and our foes, we have laid down the political and military groundwork to really deal forcefully with our jihadi enemies. The question remains as to whether or not the Bush administration can maintain the pressure on the Islamic theocrats abroad via an activity (nation-building) it professed abhorrence for pre-9/11, not to mention the historically strong ties between the House of Bush and the House of Saud which act as a counter-balance to the anti-terrorist effort. The terrorists have been beaten back into Saudi Arabia, and the devil's bargain that the ruling dynasty has made with them shows definite signs of coming apart. Sensible reporting on the region indicates that the problems that the media is currently whining about were anticipated and progress is real, but slow and not "media-sexy." At home, the domestic opposition has squandered its credibility attacking a vague intelligence statement about possible attempts on Saddam's part to purchase African uranium rather than make substantive criticisms of the failure of American intelligence to deal with 9/11 or the hopelessly bureaucratic idiocies of "Homeland Security." Such raving anti-war figures as Mark Steyn and Glenn Reynolds have had to bring these concerns to the fore.

It is understandable that the Democratic party is loathe to follow Reynolds's suggestions, since that would involve them taking some mature measure of responsibility for Clinton's sleepwalking through history, as well as criticizing one of their reliable voting and fund-raising groups (government employees). It is also not surprising that the bulk of the trendoid anti-war left is so adamantly wrong about the nature of the "inkblot" strategy, given their abysmal ignorace of what they profess to protest, namely the history of war and the military. I must be pardoned some cynicism if I state my suspicions that the more clued-in members of the Left are, at heart, upset at the prospect of the U.S. military actually rolling back not only communism but also the "lesser evils" that US policy tolerated and/or aided during that struggle. It would show an adaptability in the face of error that the modern epigones of socialism have never been able to muster in confronting the realities of power politics, actual economics and human nature.

Some Quick Blogs

We haven't blogged much lately, so here's some brief items to get us going again:

• There's been a lot of blogging about Maureen Dowd's article on Clarence Thomas, but the main problem with it is a very basic one: whether or not Thomas benefited from affirmative action has nothing to do with whether or not affirmative action is constitutional. Thomas is under no obligation to deem something constitutional merely because it was of benefit to him.

• Marcus Cole, a Stanford Law professor, bluntly refers to Dowd as a racist. Good for him. The same should be said of Al Sharpton, according to whom Clarence Thomas is not the right kind of black. Why should Dowd and Sharpton be called racists? Because they believe that members of a particular race should endorse certain political views and only those views. There isn't anything different about this than a white supremacist accusing another white of being a race traitor.

• Richard Gephardt is an extremist, pure and simple:

  When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day.

  He doesn't belong in any political office. He either doesn't understand or doesn't care about the tripartite nature of our government. That alone makes him unfit for any office. I can't even begin to imagine the outrage had Bush let loose such a remark of unmitigated imperiousness.

• Then there's Howard Dean:

  "The president has divided us," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said. "He's divided us by race by using the word 'quotas.' There's no such thing as a quota at the University of Michigan, never has been."

  Of course there has never been a quota at UM. There's only been points awarded to minorities in order to reach a "critical mass" of certain minorities. Why, that's not a quota.

That's enough for now. My stomach's turning.