Port Management for Xenophobes

Apparently, we have a bipartisan furor concerning who should manage logistics at ports. According to the LA Times, that’s the extent of it. Also, from the same editorial:

…foreign companies … already run the majority of key U.S. ports - including 80% of the terminals in Los Angeles…

Furthermore, it appears the company in question, Dubai Ports World, would NOT be in charge of security, that would fall back on the usual suspects (Coast Guard, port police, DHS, etc.). I have often enjoyed (and often disagreed with) Lee Harris over at TCS, but he sorely disappoints me with a breathless, hysterical take on the flap. He recalls the fox in charge of the henhouse trope. Then, after positing some future terrorist attack, he imagines Bush having to explain to America: “Oh, we put the Arabs in charge."

So an Arab’s an Arab, then? Or, more in the spirit of this criticism: “A raghead’s a raghead.” This makes it sound as if we’re handing Osama the keys and asking him to lock up for the night. If there are potential security risks with foreign (not just Arab) management of our ports, then we certainly need to talk about this. (A non-xenophobe friend of mine has this concern, and I plan to hear it out.) And it’s always possible we should be worried, in the larger question of trade and global competitiveness, that foreign companies are beating Americans out for these logistics jobs. But the fact that these people are Arabs should not, in general, enter into the equation. If we were talking about Syria, Iran, North Korea, or even Saudi Arabia, that would be more alarming. UAE is a different country. Hence the spelling.

I can’t say I’m completely familiar with all the relevant facts, but tentatively, I may put this on a very short list of things that the Bush administration has gotten right. I’ve wanted to make such a list, as an exercise in intellectual honesty, seems like as good a place as any to start. (So I pick NOW to defend Bush? What great timing, eh? Maybe I’m just a contrarian crank…)

True "Liberals" Awake! Stand Up and be Counted.

Christopher Hitchens has been one of the most passionate and eloquent advocates for “regime change” in Iraq. I differ with him and other war supporters, ultimately, on the manner and timing with which Bush chose to fight and justify this war. Hitchens & co. are at their least persuasive when they allege, for example, real and substantive ties between Saddam’s regime and radical Islamist terrorists. That aside, they are at their most persuasive when arguing from sheer moral force against the pernicious ideologies, social pathologies, and illiberal violence that sadly permeate much of the Islamic world, as Hitchens does again today, when discussing the “Danish cartoon violence.” It is hard to find much fault with his essay. (Except, perhaps, an apparent call for forcibly defunding madrasahs in the U.S. When and if these "schools" explicitly advocate violence, by all means shut them down! But if they successfully weasel around or tiptoe up to the edge without going that far... well again I must stand with the First Amendment on principle. I cannot restrict peaceful speech, however offensive I may find it.)

I’d like to point out that my critique of my own culture and country, printed in this space a little while back, was in no way a defense of the hideous and inexcusable violence we have seen, or even some sort of call for greater “understanding.” I don’t think there is much to “understand” about the violence—it is, I repeat, hideous and inexcusable. I merely wanted to make the point that we need to defend freedom of expression as passionately and consistently as its enemies attack it. I’m fully with Hitchens on this one. Let me also pass on a quote, which comes from a friend of a friend (thanks D.C.):

"This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste, of a bitter cup which will be proffered year by year - unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we rise again and take our stand for freedom." -Winston Churchill

Let us hope that the fight is more about moral health than martial vigor. We certainly need more of the former... ultimately it may prevent more of the latter.

Partisan Identification and Voting

Fascinating look at partisanship, self-identification, and actual voting over at Reason. Myself? Paradoxically, I’d say my voting pattern has become more decisively Democratic even as my philosophy is more genuinely independent.

There are many issues where I differ from the dominant Democratic position. On a significant subset of those issues, I even think the dominant Republican position is preferable. It’s just that, on balance, I have a lot more “scary” disagreements with Republicans. That is, both parties have a lot of bad ideas, but the Republican bad ideas tend to scare me more (often a lot more) than the Democratic ones. Combine that with two hugely important facts on the ground: 1) the Republicans are in charge and running the ball with many of their scary bad ideas 2) the current administration and dominant Republican establishment either doesn’t actually believe or is unwilling to act on many of the good (or less bad) “Republican” ideas.

Fiscal conservatism. True fiscal conservatives are an awfully forlorn, isolated band these days aren’t they? There are a handful of moderate Democrats and Republicans, combined with another handful of “old school conservative” Republicans. But, in truth, fiscal responsibility has always been about as popular as healthy eating and exercise, hasn’t it? The idea that Ronald Reagan was a fiscal conservative is one of those ridiculous urban legends that will not die. Alligators in the sewer, aliens at Roswell, and Reagan’s small government conservatism. And last time I checked, Bush 43 was the biggest spender since LBJ, and maybe bigger.

Trade. The current crop of GOP leadership is typically solicitous of the classic agricultural subsidy welfare queens. Sugar and cotton throughout the GOP’s cherished and prized South, especially sugar in ever crucial and competitive Florida. And do I have to remind anyone of Bush’s blatantly pandering steel tariffs?

And so on. These are just a couple of issues where I’d actually agree with official traditional Republican rhetoric, but the reality of their governance is another matter altogether.

The really scary stuff remains a thorough lack of respect for civil liberties and a devotion to religion as a basis for policy. If the Democrats regain power someday, I might begin conscientiously abstaining, but as long as people like James Dobson and Ralph Reed remain close to the seat of Republican power, the GOP can write me off. I’m sure they’re worried about that!

Speech: Freedom's Stepchild

The Arab and Islamic violence regarding the Danish cartoons is indeed sobering, distressing, and saddening. For me, the most troubling aspect is how this is just another reminder of how truly rare is a conscientious, committed belief in freedom of expression. Yes, it almost goes without saying that most of the Islamic societies where the violence is occurring do not value such freedom, or have a real tradition (in modern times) of free speech. And it is disappointing, but not terribly surprising, that various Europeans (the British and the Danes themselves, among others) exhibit little or no commitment to this principle. Has anybody checked in with Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam) lately?

But here is yet another occasion where it does not pay to be too smug, as Americans. Our own government has been rather equivocal and mealy-mouthed. And as a people, the old "three fingers are pointing back at you" cliché applies, at least somewhat. Although it's been said (many times, many ways), it bears repeating: If you don't believe in protecting speech that offends you, then you don't believe in free speech. Americans are often guilty of this hypocrisy ourselves. We don't (usually) go rioting in the streets, but we're often ready to shut somebody up as soon as they piss us off. The Constitution and the courts often stand in the way, which is good, but the impulse to censor is there in the populace.

The First Amendment, and the principle it embodies, means nothing if it does not extend to ideas you hate. Nothing. That’s the whole point.

If you think it's ok for someone to sing "God Bless America" at a graduation ceremony, but not ok for some pathetic homophobes to spew their venom in the vicinity of a soldier's funeral, then you don't believe in free speech.

If you think it's ok for someone to show Ward and June Cleaver sharing a big smooch, but not ok for someone to show nasty, stomach-turning porn (stipulated: it's of adults, by adults, and for adults), then you don't believe in free speech.

And if you think it's ok for some pissant to mock Muhammad in a Danish cartoon, but it's not ok for some pissant to burn the American flag on the National Mall in D.C., then you don't believe in free speech.

Dueling QDR's

Two “different” takes on the Quadrennial Defense Review, by Slate’s Fred Kaplan and TCS’s Melana Zyla Vickers. The titles are strikingly divergent: “Rumsfeld Surrenders…” vs. “A Revolutionary Review…” I’ve read a number of columns by both of these writers, and they both seem intelligent and well-informed about military technology and weapons systems. Wow, seems as if they must’ve read two different reports, right? Obviously, they have different perspectives. Slate gets dismissed as slanted left by some of my “conservative” friends, but I think it is one of the best, truly “balanced” sites I’ve come across. (I can, and perhaps will, support this in detail, but leave it for now.) But it is fair to say Kaplan (like myself) is no Bush fan. Vickers, on the other hand, like many of her TCS colleagues, seems duty-bound to carry water for the Bush administration. But, if you read carefully, these two writers end up saying very similar things: There are Big Ideas in the QDR, all about taking the military to a new generation of technology and tactics, but the reality is that we are spending huge amounts on old “legacy” cold war inspired weapons systems, and the QDR leaves them intact. In times of runaway budgets…

… new areas of endeavor can only come at the price of old, less useful areas. The old stuff, including short-range fighter programs and Navy surface combatants among others, has to be cut… That's not going to be easy. … Congress is set in its ways, and politicians devoted to the weapons built or housed in their constituencies will try any argument to keep them from getting cut in favor of new ones. Consider that since the 1980s, despite the sea-change of the Cold War's end and new military circumstances, Congress has eliminated only about a dozen weapons systems.

The above quote come from… Vickers, who touts the QDR as “revolutionary.” Congress, reluctant to cut weapons systems, any weapons system regardless of need or efficacy? I’m shocked, shocked! And this was Kaplan’s main point. Something’s got to give, and the QDR doesn’t even pretend to address this, it not only leaves intact but actually expands Cold War era weapons projects like nuclear subs and short-range fighters--some revolution!

Advantage… Kaplan!