Heretics' almanac

The psychology of the Olmert Plan

In poignantly low voter turnout, the Knesset ended up being more fragmented than ever. However, a party dedicating itself to centrism and the sort-of-new Olmert, won most seats - 28 out of 120. I don't know if anyone has figured out precisely what mandate this gives the new Olmert government yet, but it seems a strong supposition that Olmert will establish - unilaterally, bilaterally, or multilaterally - the borders between the (Arab) state of Palestine and the state of Israel.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the dynamics of Israeli politics - it's unbelievably complex and confusing unless you study and discuss it every day - but I did find this discussion in Ha'aretz interesting.

The article is an argument between Ari Shavit and Chaim Ramon, in which they mostly agree on the end state (or rather states) but can't agree on the protocol for getting there.

Sowing a confidence crisis

In the Huffington Post, David Kirby writes that the American Academy of Pediatricians is likely to oppose any research into a possible connection between vaccinations and pediatric neurological disorders and are trying to hold up a bill that would, among other things, fund such research.

The AAP, along with a dwindling number of organizations, are trying to convince us that since some research fails to provide evidence of a link (although there is lots of research that lends support for it), we can safely assume that no link exists.

This is obviously a logical fallacy, but what is truly puzzling is why the AAP would oppose such research, even if its only purpose would be to put parents' concerns to rest.

I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories - I don't think at all that pharmaceutical companies are corruptly trying to protect their financial interests by continuing to poison kids.

But what I do believe is this:

Sloppy by Mearsheimer and Walt

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt have recently published a "working paper" under their own names, though it seems many in the media believe this paper is a serious piece of scholarly research published under the Kennedy School seal.

The working paper is nothing more than a polemic that demonstrates that even distinguished professors of political science are capable of invoking the most tired, unimaginative, and demonstrably false cliches to establish a premise for a conclusion that must therefore be absurd. In this case, they want to establish that US policy toward Israel has harmed the American national interest, and so the next question must be why the US has acted to stupidly.

I'm not a political scientist by profession, but even I know that what is in the national interests of the United States is at best a complex issue. Yet Mearsheimer and Walt treat it with the kind of superciliousness that is nearly breathtaking and surely would count as a demerit coming from a student in PolSci 101 at even a third tier college.

How many more years?

I tend to accept the premise that more (or any) free and democratic countries in the Middle East can only serve to stabilize the area and increase the probability of durable peace among its many groups. And I tend to reject the premise - so often held by left-wingers - that people in this region are more or less incapable of embracing freedom and democracy.

This is the cornerstone for the so-called "neocon" point of view: let there be more freedom and democracy, and let's do whatever it takes to make it happen.

As we go into our fourth year of US forces in Iraq, there are three questions that should be considered:

1. Is the basis for going to war consistent with what the war accomplished?
2. Is there still reason to believe that more freedom and democracy is a valid strategy for the Middle East?
3. Was the Iraq strategy the right one, and has it been executed well?

Let's see here:

V and terrorism.

You have to wonder what it is about V for Vendetta that captures people's imagination (I haven't seen it yet), but the film critic on NPR asked the rhetorical question - what if you had to choose between joining the terrorists or supporting a totalitarian, fascist regime?

For some people, of course, the question isn't rhetorical. All terrorists, at some level or another, believe their tactics are justified because their enemy - a monolithic, morally unjustified regime - is so awful there is no other moral choice. It doesn't much matter whether they are delusional or lucid - the narrative finds basis in all kinds of historical revolutions where right triumphed over wrong.

In truth, "terrorism" - as it should be defined - has nothing to do with its purpose. It is a tactic that is morally unjustified regardless of who perpetrates it, or for what pretext ro reason. If we lived in a world where morality carried real weight, its use would delegitimize its ends.

Under Wiki-attack

I am under attack in Wikipedia. Another editor who calles himself Midgley and is in all likelihood the same person as one Adrian Midgley, is accusing me of bad manners and extreme bias. He's more or less surreptitiously leaving messages with other editors I've had disagreements with and making various kinds of accusations other places - implying that I'm drunk, trying to ridicule other information he finds about me on the web, and trying to convince people that since I have a son he's inferred is "autistic," I am blind to his superior knowledge and intellect, and admin action is needed. Presumably he wants me to be banned or reprimanded or something. He isn't clear what sanctions he thinks are appropriate.

He has also started looking at other articles I've been involved, claiming that it is a matter of opinion whether Mordechai Vanunu was prosecuted and convicted of treason. I suppose he believes that the judges, the attorneys and Vanunu himself may possibly have been hallucinating when the verdict was handed down; maybe that if you think about it, the whole universe is a subjective experience. Wow, man.

Some proposals for waking up Norway

Bruce Bawer's book While Europe Slept is an important and so far one of the best contributions to the highly unsatisfying debate in Europe on what some might euphemistically call the “Non-Western Immigrant Problem.”

But it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and for lack of some facts, I’m struggling to fully endorse one view or another.

In his book, Bruce describes the deeply dysfunctional and ultimately destructive interplay between two misguided groups: extremist, ethnocentric immigrants who disdain the host societies they benefit from in several ways; and the elitist, cynically naïve politicians, academics, and journalists who set the tone in the very same host countries.

Bruce Bawer on narcoleptic Europe

Bruce Bawer lives in Norway, but has the benefit of an outsider's perspective on Norwegian life in general and the political discourse in particular. His latest book is While Europe Slept : How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, published very recently.

For a Norwegian like me, it's not a pleasant read. While it's easy to be disgusted by the state of affairs in politics here, there, and everywhere, I cling to an illusion that sooner or later, intellectual integrity is forced upon the politicians, that they can defer and obfuscate for a while, but things eventually catch up. Also, we live under the hope that Europe is in fact enlightened from its history, that the carnage brought up about by naivete in the face of naked aggression has made an impression.

Let's face it: it's confusing.