From Question the Culture

This is quoted from the masthead of the latest addition to the blogroll, Question the Culture, quoting, in turn, C.S. Lewis:

You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

Andrew McCarthy on Grasping the Obvious

Free democratic systems, moreover, are based on notions of liberty, private property, and equality. In stark contrast, many Islamic traditions reject freedom of conscience, freedom to make law that countermands sharia, economic freedom, equality for Muslims and non-Muslims, and equality for men and women, to name just a few key divergences. But even if none of this were so, mightn't Occam's razor have reared its head by now? After fourteen centuries, there is no secular democratic tradition in Islamic society. Given that secular democracy is the best guarantor of liberty and prosperity, is it not self-evident that some precinct of the umma would have adopted it by now, without any help from us, if Islamic society were innately receptive?

This hints at my number one complaint about how we are conducting our "war on terror": we persist in this deranged idea that we can successfully convert nations into Western-style representative republics, when they have no historical interest in any such thing, when, in fact, their dominant belief-system strongly militates against such a conversion. It is a fool's errand.

Yet Another Quote from The Grand Jihad

Mr. McCarthy, perhaps inadvertently, on why so many Americans have a hard time believing that there are people in government who want to dictate the minutia of our lives:

Ordinary people do not obsess over societal "progress." For the vast majority of us, the personal is not the political. Our attention and passion are reserved for our families, friends, neighborhoods, jobs, and avocations--for living life, not for prescribing how life should be lived. Ordinary people don't eat, sleep, and breathe societal engineering.

Oh, Thank You, O Tolerant Leftists, Peace Be Upon You...

I have to admit, I had not read anything but the headlines on this story until Dan Phillips took note of the story. It is now apparently against the law in some places to--you might want to sit down for this one--advertise, in church, for a Christian roommate.

I **** thee not.

The ad "expresses an illegal preference for a Christian roommate, thus excluding people of other faiths,” according to the complaint filed by the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan.

"It's a violation to make, print or publish a discriminatory statement," Executive Director Nancy Haynes told Fox News. "There are no exemptions to that."

Haynes said the unnamed 31-year-old woman’s case was turned over to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. Depending on the outcome of the case, she said, the woman could face several hundreds of dollars in fines and “fair housing training so it doesn’t happen again.”

Harold Core, director of public affairs with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, told the Grand Rapids Press that the Fair Housing Act prevents people from publishing an advertisement stating their preference of religion, race or handicap with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling.

[snip]

...Haynes said officials plan on pursuing the matter.

"We want to make sure it doesn't happen again," she said.

Care to take a crack at how many protected freedoms this violates?

Some of you out there who fancy yourselves a little bit on the liberalish side like to tell me, from time to time, that this "culture war" thing is all in my head.

Bull. You just don't see it, for the same reason a fish doesn't know it's in the water.

There's Your Religion of Peace

Warning: this is truly bad.
Via Jihad Watch.

Yes, it's pretty sick. The whole religion is pretty sick.

Oh, I know what you're going to say, some of you. "MOTW, those are the extremists."

And all I have to say is:

a) It is perfectly consistent with Muhammad's own life and example, and

b) Those "extremists" appear to be running whole countries, or close to it. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen--whole countries given over to fairly stringent interpretations of sharia. How many millions of people have to embrace an Islam with strong historical precedent and ample support from Islam's scriptures before you concede that it isn't really "extreme"?

Oh--you were wondering, "What was the woman's 'crime'?" Apparently, she was seen out with a man.

The American Thinker on Trade Policy

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The post from which this material is quoted was published some little time ago, maybe as long as a month. The whole thing is worth reading. Not that I agree with every jot and every tittle, but it is worth your time.

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In the trade war between the mercantilist countries and the U.S., China and the other mercantilists intervene in our markets by manipulating the price of the dollar, as compared to their currencies, so that our goods are overpriced and their goods are underpriced in world markets. In the meantime they keep our products out of their markets through various tariff and non-tariff barriers.

There are three positions on trade when a country is being punched-out by mercantilists:

1. Unilateral Free Trade. This is the Republican establishment's pacifist strategy of just taking the punches to afford an example to the rest of the world. This has been U.S. policy for three decades.
2. Protectionism. This is liberal Democrats' "industrial policy" strategy of protecting government-preferred industries with tariffs and subsidies. Pres. GW Bush did it with respect to steel and was forced by the WTO to back down. Pres. Obama did it with respect to tires produced in China and succeeded in enforcing it.
3. Balanced Trade. This is the conservative pro-free-market strategy of balancing exports with imports in order to defeat the mercantilist strategy of maximizing exports and minimizing imports. It takes advantage of a special WTO rule that lets trade deficit countries impose import duties or limitations in order to bring trade into reasonable balance. China, the largest of the mercantilist countries, only lets its people buy 27¢ of American products for every $1 we buy from them. They use a variety of tariff and non-tariff barriers to keep out American products, forcing American companies to locate their factories in China in order to sell to the growing Chinese market.

I don't think the writer has it exactly right here, but he makes the fundamental point, one that I have been making over and over again since I first began to read about this issue:

Free Trade, as envisioned by so may libertarian-leaning economists, does not actually exist. It is strictly a theoretical construct. Other countries find ways to protect their markets. Personally, I am dead set against subsidies, but tariffs--I did think it mildly amusing that the writer seemd to think "tariffs" were "bad" and "import duties" were okay, despite them being much the same thing. Shoot, I think they are exactly the same thing, and there is nothing, per se, wrong with them.

I am not unaware that tariffs/import duties come with certain problems. My personal preference would be to institute the Fair Tax, which would have much the same effect as tariffs when it comes to trade, that is, it would create a massive tax advantage to manufacturing in the United States, but it should allow us to avoid some of the problems commonly associated with tariffs. However, if I can't get the Fair Tax, enacting tariffs (accompanied by big cuts in income tax rates) would be far preferable to what the writer calls "unilateral free trade." That is just wishful thinking masquerading as a trade policy.

But Nobody Gives Two Squats What You Think About It

Yes, I'm afraid there's a touch of snark to the title. Perhaps it would have been more polite if I said, "Unfortunately for your argument, what you 'think' has no relevance to the subject actually under discussion."

Let me explain. It has been pointed out that there are certain popular (or less so, depending on who you ask) programs that some Tea Partiers hold to be unconstitutional.

What do some bloggers have to say in refutation of this? Their reply to the idea that program X is unconstitutional?

They disagree because they think that government has a role to play in caring for the poor and elderly.

Now, remember: what is in question is whether or not program X is constitutional. What government's proper role is, is not in question. It is, in fact, irrelevant to the question of whether or not program X is constitutional. You might think program X is the perfect fulfillment of the perfect government's role in caring for people, but that has nothing to do with what the Constitution actually says. If you want the Constitution to permit program X and it doesn't, your opinion on government's proper role won't change that.