Irwin Stelzer, AEI and China

As with any Bradley Lecture put on by the illustrious (so long as you don’t ask Bruce Bartlett or a few choice others…) American Enterprise Institute, a political science/thought/philosophy nerd such as myself can look around and spot the giants on whose shoulders many of us hope to stand on someday as we come up through the movement (we hope).  Irwin Stelzer’s appearance was no exception, as he gave his remarks on Conservatism and the “new capitalism” where he advocated that conservatives take hold of the moment we currently find ourselves and instead of just saying no, say no and here’s what we’d do instead.  AEI will have the video posted soon, and we’ll link it here when they do.

One of the more biting remarks he made during the question and answer session was his calling out the US government for not calling out China for “currency manipulation.”  He also addressed a question from an Indian journalist, in which he advocated for any country that may wish to have America take its side in an international dispute, become America’s enemy considering Obama’s foreign policy seems to be reach out to your enemies, snub your friends.  He cited examples such as siding with Argentina over Britain regarding the Falklands dispute, and others that echoed the sentiments expressed by Seth Cropsey in his Weekly Standard article. 

I didn’t get to have him sign my NeoCon Reader though…

-rj

America is Great

Rubio is really working the crowd, and is talking about how great America is for enterprise, how we are the greatest country in the world, how we are a free society, etc. He also is going after those who think America needs government guidance.

He says people with the latter viewpoint won elections, and are using this downturn to change, not fix, America. “It’s the expansion of government at home” that has implications on our foreign policy. China, in particular, reminds us of how much debt we owe them whenever we say something they don’t like.

Rubio’s now talking about how government leaders are redefining how America works and runs. It was the PEOPLE who did it, though, not their “leaders” in DC or government.

The political class and mainstream media are out of touch, and don’t get it. 2010 is not a choice between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives…it’s a referendum on our country.

The people want leaders who stand against big government, not get co-opted by it. The Senate has “one Arlen Specter too many.”

Support Google Against China

So I’m not normally a big fan of Google, given the company’s support for net neutrality and the generally liberal tendencies it is associated with. However, yesterday The Washington Post highlighted Google’s opposition to policies of the Chinese government regarding the Internet and Internet-providing companies. Therefore, I applaud Google for standing up against China.

I was listening to the Laura Ingraham show today, and this issue was brought up. Ms. Ingraham suspected that Google will back down in the end, letting China continue its gross human rights and business practices violations. I disagree, however- Google has made a stand, and to go back on that stand would show it to be weak. This would not do anything positive for the company’s standing with non-Chinese markets, whereas standing up against China might actually give Microsoft and other companies the guts to do the same. This could cause major change in certain Chinese policies. Google literally could be the tipping point that causes technology companies to stop allowing the abuses the Chinese government consistently heaps on them.

Worldwide One-Child Law?

So this knucklehead up in Canada thinks a planet-wide one-child law is the cure to overpopulation concerns. The author, one Diane Francis, cites China as her example of a country with the right policy on population control to help save the planet and, as a result, humanity.

Before I rip into Francis, a brief history on population growth. In short, there are four stages of population. Stage 1 is pre-urban, Stage 2 is the beginning of industrialization, Stage 3 is modern industrialization and Stage 4 is post-industrialization. As a nation grows wealthier, more educated, more equal between the sexes etc. the population tends to slow. Europe and North America are at Stages 3 and 4, though The United States of America has not quite hit Stage 4 due to our large influx of immigrants. Of course, one of the negatives of this population growth pattern is the “graying” of many nations.

When I first read this piece, I knew I had to be misreading it. Francis couldn’t be saying the world should follow the ethical standards of China. Not the one that is run by a government?that has refused to apologize for the Tiananmen Square massacre 20 years ago. Not the same one that tried to cover up SARS, sterilizes women and forces them to have abortions as part of their one-child policy and arrested many citizens and tried to prevent freedom of speech before and during the 2008 Summer?Olympics. I was also sure she couldn’t have meant the same one that has crushed Tibetans for over half a century and did so again last year.

Alas, I was wrong- Francis was referring to that very China. Francis has ignored the giant elephant in the room, namely China’s atrocious human rights history involved with its “success” story on lowering the size of its population.There are a number of other things Francis missed in her thesis, and I will touch on a few of them below.

First, there are a number of more-ethical-than-China ways to encourage a birth rate that helps population control. One is to create opportunities for widespread wealth. A second is to “[ensure] women’s equality and improving their education, while providing cheap contraception.” (Note: as a practicing Catholic, I do not find contraceptive use ethical; however, it is more ethical than the Chinese approach of forced sterilizations and abortions. Too, I think the other three improvements provide far more opportunity for slowing birth rates.) These opportunities are largely responsible for nations at Stage 4 of population growth patterns.

Another point Francis missed was the utter immorality of forcing abortions worldwide. As Jonah Goldberg put it at The Corner: “But one point does cry out to be made. Imagine if someone wrote an op-ed saying that we need a planetary ban on abortion. Feminists would get their dresses over their heads in outrage about such a naked assault on “reproductive freedom.” But here is a woman in a very prestigious Canadian newspaper arguing, in effect, that every country in the world should force women everywhere to have an abortion if they already have a child. Put aside, for a moment, the pro-life objections to this. Even if you think the unborn are really just a bunch of cells, mere “uterine contents” with no more moral import than fingernail clippings, how on earth can anyone believe in “reproductive freedom” and not be absolutely horrified by the police-state evil of such proposals?”

Thirdly, Francis forgets that over a dozen countries, including Finland and France, have taken giant steps toward energy independence by building nuclear power plants. Combined with Congress allowing more nuclear power plants and domestic drilling in America- the world’s second-largest carbon dioxide emitter- this would be a huge step toward renewable and cleaner energy policy that would reverbrate around the world. It would also create less demand for oil, which is obviously good for the planet. Since Francis is rightfully concerned about the impact of overpopulation on the planet?s resources, perhaps she would agree that eliminating the need for non-renewable resources and lessening the overall impact of humanity on the planet is better than encouraging forced abortions and sterilizations?

A last point- Francis is entirely inefficient with her method of controlling the world’s population. The best way to attack population growth is to have every single one of these fruitcakes voluntarily jump off a bridge. Let’s say just one percent of the Earth’s population agrees with her; that means we’ll get rid of 60 million people with no added effort or government involvement. Next, atomize Tokyo and Beijing- throw in New York, the Yankees are there- and our population won’t have to take decades to see results. In minutes Earth will be a happier, healthier place to live!

The fact is that a planet-wide ban on multiple children would, by its very nature, lead to a worst-case scenario situation of forced abortions, sterilization, government intimidation, a plethora of jailed citizens etc. The world’s one example of this is China, but allow me to extrapolate: let’s say each government takes its responsibility to help the planet seriously. They hire people whose job it is to keep the birth rate at one per couple. Of course, some people won’t follow the law, which means those officials will have only a few choices to prevent multiple births by a mother. The first is to arrest her and her husband for breaking the law- after forcing her to have an abortion, of course, to prevent the extra child’s birth- thereby causing the government to adopt the couple’s first child or find it a new home. The second is to not jail the couple- but to prevent births another way. The solution would be to abort the extra child and sterilize the mother and/or father (though probably the mother, since sterilizing the father would still leave the mother the opportunity to get pregnant from another source). Of course, if all else fails, the government could simply kill the parents and thereby save both the planet’s and the government’s resources, and put the firstborn child up for adoption.

Obviously, Francis does not care for the human species- that is her prerogative. As of now, her opinion is not quite in the mainstream. It’s not even a Google option. Unfortunately, as Goldberg said, her piece was in a “very prestigious Canadian newspaper,” so it’s up to those of us who think this policy is heinous to stop it in its tracks so it does not reach the status of “mainstream.”

By the way, AllahPundit says it more concisely and better than I can.

Real News Left Behind

It was 10:10 on Sunday evening, and I decided to see what the leading?news stories were on CNN?s and Fox?s respective websites. Having seen Yahoo News? top story being about Tiger Woods? car accident the other day, I suspected I knew what the answer was. Turns out, I was right. The stories were in spots designed to get major, first–or-second-glance attention.

Now, to be fair, Fox and CNN also had big stories about the police shooting (both), a woman who is helping women get mammograms (CNN), a story about AIDS guidelines (Fox) and Fox had its required “Support a Republican” story about Senator Lugar (R-IN) and his?thoughts about delaying health care reform until?”next year, the same way we put cap and trade and climate change, and talk now about the essentials: the war and money.” However, Fox had the Woods “story” on its top four list on its site, and CNN had it first on its “Latest News” list. (Oddly enough, MSNBC had the Woods “story” listed as third in its Sports section, and I actually missed it the first two times I scanned the page. MSNBC’s main section covered the police shootings, the economy, Afghanistan, Detroit’s economic needs, where investors are focusing this week and the Steelers-Ravens game. Not too bad for a liberal rag of a “news” source.)

Money drives news, as it should- news needs money to survive, after all- but once again our news is showing just how misplaced American priorities and dollars are. Stories that cover Honduras, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, China, the recession, the police shootings, health care reform efforts and other important news should be at the top of the list the vast majority of the time. Instead, they are pushed aside by non-news and entertainment.

This is an old rant, and says nothing new (except that MSNBC actually did a good job at something). Should those of us who care keep hammering at America’s lack of real world knowledge and news awareness, or are we wasting our time? Will we as a nation pull our heads out of *the clouds* and at least try to be aware of the world around us? Please?