Creative & Cost-Effective
Jonah Goldberg wrote positively about Mickey Kaus, Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) primary opponent, a couple of weeks ago. It was a really good column. Yesterday, Goldberg followed up by posting Kaus’ very creative political ad on The Corner. The video is below:
Get Rid of Napolitano
As is well-known by now, last week there was a suicide bomber attack on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit. The attack, fortunately, failed, as the explosive device failed to go off. The alleged terrorist is suspected to be connected to at least one terrorist organization. He claimed, initially at least, to be connected to Al Qaeda.
This, obviously, is both good news and bad. First, it’s good in that nobody died, a terrorist was captured and now we know where to concentrate more efforts on the international scale. The bad news is that some people are just plain stupid, including Think Progress’ Matthew Yglesias, who wrote the other day that, “Ultimately, it does no favors to anyone to blow this sort of thing out of proportion. The United States could not, of course, be ?devastated? by anything resembling this scheme. We ought to be clear on that fact. We want to send the message around the world that this sort of vile attempt to slaughter innocent people is not, at the end of the day, anything resembling a serious challenge to American power. It?s attempted murder, it?s wrong, we should try to stop it, but it?s really not much more than that.”
Even worse, however, is the reaction from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. “The system worked,” according to Napolitano. Given that it took a failed attempt plus civilian passengers to subdue the attempted terrorist, I’d say the system failed. Plus, the guy was on a watch list, which is particularly poignant given his father reported him as a potential threat two years ago. (See the video of Napolitano’s inane comments here.)
To quote Jonah Goldberg from The Corner yesterday, “If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.” Personally, I think “man-caused disasters” are a worse threat than conservatives, Secretary Napolitano. You had better figure that out soon, or your job will be gone. Unfortunately, this will probably not happen until after Americans have died as a result of your incompetence. Yes, as they said on the Real Clear Politics blog, it’s your job to reassure the American public as part of an overall security standpoint. However- and I’ll finish with a quote from the RCP blog- “…she should be smart enough to find a way of doing that without treating the American people like a bunch of morons and dupes.”
This was originally posted at THE LOBBYIST.
Update: According to The Washington Monthly blog, President Obama has been paying close attention to the Al Qaeda threat from Yemen. Kudos to President Obama for doing so.
Update II: The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell points out the continued failure by the Obama administration to take the proper steps to protect this country from terrorists, and offers three steps going forward.
Update III: A friend pointed out on Facebook that I misspelled Secretary Napolitano’s name- it is corrected.
Update IIII (last one, I hope): Two links from where I posted this at Race42012 showing Secretary Napolitano backtracking on her statements about the system working well. Too little, too late, I think.
TODAY Video: Napolitano: Prevention system ?failed miserably?
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/34608370#34608370
Security System Failed, Napolitano Acknowledges
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/us/29terror.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
Jonah Goldberg On Overpopulation & Global Wealth
Earlier this week I wrote about a one-child policy recommended by Diane Francis. It took me 1,099 words. National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg wrote a better, more concise, harder-hitting piece today- and it only took him 785 words. I recommend reading it. It’s quite good. And short.
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.
