Archive for April, 2010
April 26th, 2010 by Justin
The new Arizona law intended to curb illegal immigration does not permit, but mandates police officers to inquire a person’s immigration status if they believe they might be illegal–irrespective of that person’s actions or behavior. As liberals have said, obviously this law opens the door to undue prejudice, stereotyping and favoritism on the part of the police. How is an average cop supposed to tell if a person might be illegal? Suppose he sees a white man with blond hair in a suit driving a Rolls Royce, and a brown man with black hair in dirty clothes driving a broken-down pickup truck on some Arizona highway. Image is everything in such a scenario. Indeed, image is the only thing. The officer will surely be compelled to pull the second driver over–to not do so would risk his job.
One thing that makes the Arizona law so extraordinary is that the police, who have always been compelled to act on the basis of a person’s actions, are now necessarily required to act on the basis of a person’s image. That is, required necessarily to act on one’s image. This is a colossal development in the role and responsibilities of the police. Perhaps for the first time ever in the US, a person might be stopped by the police for doing absolutely nothing. And it would be consistent with the law.
Proponents of the new law counter that it stipulates “a person’s race alone cannot be taken into account.” Ok, then use race plus clothing. Or race plus quality of vehicle. But does anyone honestly believe that skin color will not be a crucial factor in the execution of this law? It is inevitable. And if I’m wrong, I invite any proponent to point out to me ten blond and blue-eyed people who have been arrested under the auspices of illegal immigration in the American Southwest.
The response might come, “ok, you might be right–more attention will be placed on dark skin, but so what? They are more likely to be illegal, after all.” That is true, but insofar as the vast majority of people with dark skin are in Arizona legally, a massive and unprecedented burden will be placed on thousands upon thousands of people who have not done anything wrong. Extra police attention alone is cause for concern, because it creates a two-tiered situation where one class of citizens enjoys less scrutiny than another class–solely because of their physical traits. In time, like profiling at the airport, what seems like a common-sense approach to a simple problem will cause more problems than it solves, to say nothing of its constitutionality, which has been questioned.
The above analysis might be wrong. But until the law comes into effect, we simply do not know what its real impact will be–unintended consequences and all. Brown people should tread carefully in Arizona for the time being. Arizona certainly has an illegal immigration crisis, and something must be done. But this isn’t it.
On a separate but related note, the law was intended to curb illegal immigration. It will do nothing of the kind. From a potential illegal immigrant’s point of view, a United States where the police have excessive powers, and where racism and xenophobia are serious concerns, is still the United States. It is still a beacon of prosperity and comfort for those living in wretched conditions in Mexico and elsewhere, especially given the barbaric drug violence there.
All the law will do is (1) divert the flow that would have otherwise gone to Arizona into Texas, New Mexico and California, and (2) simply layer another obstacle–nevertheless surmountable–to the average illegal immigrant’s dream of a better life in “El Norte.” These people are willing to die in a desert. Ask yourself: is the threat of getting arrested likely to deter them? Before you answer, remember that the local jailhouse is probably better furnished and cleaner than most of their homes.
So the new law misses two birds with one stone: it doesn’t do anything to curtail illegal immigration, and it stokes social tensions by throwing civil rights in doubt. You’re 0 for 2, Arizona. And we haven’t even gotten to the birther bill.
April 19th, 2010 by Justin
It was bound to happen. Goldman Sachs was far too successful and prominent to avoid an investigation by regulators in the aftermath of massive financial crisis. And since nobody considers that the economic system itself might be to blame for the crisis, what better scapegoat is there? Surely, there’s nothing systemically flawed with the economy, and so the only rational explanation is some wrongdoing at the highest echelons of Corporate America, right?
Americans, from the average joe to the political power brokers to the corporate honchos, were and are far too attached to the economic status quo to even entertain the notion that significant reform of the economic and financial system is warranted. In place of a reasonable analysis by an informed understanding of economics, Americans have chosen to find scapegoats everywhere imaginable: irresponsible debtors taking on more loans than they could afford, idealistic politicians pushing home ownership in spite of financial unsoundness, the big banks, financial speculators, Democrats, Republicans, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Barney Frank, Tim Geithner, and more. Surely, all of these parties bear a fraction of the blame, some more than others.
But to blame any of these individuals or entities misses the larger issue. Most of these actors were–and, more importantly, still are–in hock to the critically flawed economic regime of neoliberalism/ market fundamentalism/ neo-laissez faire and the simplistic assumptions and models underlying it. This includes countless “leaders” in the government, some of the most important businesspeople and, most importantly, the large majority of Americans. Thankfully, there are some prominent individuals who have chosen to take a second look at the old conventional wisdom, but they are few and far between, and have yet to formulate a new intellectual regime that can replace the existing one, decrepit though the latter may be.
It’s very possible that Goldman did something unethical or illegal. But if the SEC or other regulators think that litigating powerful people and firms will even begin to solve anything important, they’re dreaming. They could cripple every major successful firm in the country, and it still wouldn’t get to the underlying problems. We can’t know whether the investment bank will beat the allegations, but we can be confident that it doesn’t mean much. Whatever anybody’s opinion of Goldman Sachs, the SEC’s time and energy would be put to better use rolling up their sleeves and helping to restructure the economic system.
April 15th, 2010 by Justin
A recent piece on Business Insider displayed a slew of interesting charts detailing different aspects of the rise in inequality in the US in the recent decades. The state of American inequality is either a shocking revelation or a banal cliche, depending on your point of view. All of the stats displayed were interesting, but I want to share three in particular that caught my eye.
Half of America has 0.5% of the stocks and bonds:
Anyone who pays attention to right-of-center thinking knows that one of the biggest economic myths, particularly in the investor community of economic conservatives, is that “everyone is in the stock market.” And since everyone is in the markets (through their pension funds and other retirement funds or investments), policies that help the stock market grow, help large corporations be more profitable, and make financial investing easier and more lucrative do not benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else. Since everyone benefits when the markets and corporate America benefit, such policies are beneficial to a large segment of the society. Well, there goes that idea. Clearly such policies will disproportionately benefit one tiny segment of society over and above the rest.
Poor Americans have a SLIM CHANCE of rising to the upper middle class:
This chart puts in stark visual form the evolution of inter-class mobility in the US in the second half of the 20th century and beyond. The dramatic nature of the change is indeed striking. The US certainly was a very different kind of country in the aftermath of World War II than it is today, judging by the enormous differential between the probability of moving up, and of moving down at that earlier time. The much greater chance of moving in either direction–up or down–in the 1940s and 1950s is also fascinating. It indicates that the US was a much more fluid and dynamic society a half-century ago. Today, by contrast, whatever your lot in life, chances are that you’ll be there for a while. And this is precisely the stuff of which social cleavages and class warfare is made. A permanent elite and a permanent underclass are typically seen as the domain of third world countries.
America spreads the wealth FAR LESS than other developed countries
The interesting part of this graph is the significant difference between inequality reduction through taxes and inequality reduction through transfers. Taxes in America reduce inequality about as much as they do in other countries, but the transfers accomplish much less. I see two major conclusions to draw from this: (1) the US government spends a lot of money on things other than transfers, the biggest of which is defense spending, on which the other countries spend almost nothing in comparison, and (2) the money that is spent on transfers–and there is a lot of it, to be sure–does not accomplish very much, or nearly as much as it could.
The latter point is why many like myself believe that one of the keys to reducing inequality in the US is not necessarily more money, as liberals tend to believe, but simply better managing the money that is already being spent, as well as improving the incentives involved. Also, higher taxes in and of themselves are not needed, as the chart indicates. Better to rework the tax system by, for example, shifting the total burden away from the lower and middle classes, and toward the mega-rich. This can be helped by closing loopholes and exemptions that are disproportionately exploited by the rich, and which result in a largely regressive tax structure. Some more interesting thoughts on how American inequality compares with developing countries can be found on the Map Scroll blog. (Hint: it’s not good for the US.)
April 13th, 2010 by Justin
Bret Stephens opined recently in the Wall Street Journal that the cause of Islamic terrorism is not so much Israeli settlements or the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine as it is… Lady Gaga. Specifically, Stephens points to Said Qutb, widely regarded as the intellectual father of modern Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups:
In his 1951 essay “The America I Have Seen,” Qutb gave his account of the U.S. “in the scale of human values.” “I fear,” he wrote, “that a balance may not exist between America’s material greatness and the quality of her people.” Qutb was particularly exercised by what he saw as the “primitiveness” of American values, not least in matters of sex.
He goes on:
Bear in mind, too, that the America Qutb found so offensive had yet to discover Elvis, Playboy, the pill, women’s lib, acid tabs, gay rights, Studio 54, Jersey Shore and, of course, Lady Gaga. In other words, even in some dystopic hypothetical world in which hyper-conservatives were to seize power in the U.S. and turn the cultural clock back to 1948, America would still remain a swamp of degeneracy in the eyes of Qutb’s latter-day disciples.
This, then, is the core complaint that the Islamists from Waziristan to Tehran to Gaza have lodged against the West. It explains why jihadists remain aggrieved even after the U.S. addressed their previous casus belli by removing troops from Saudi Arabia, and why they will continue to remain aggrieved long after we’ve decamped from Iraq, Afghanistan and even the Persian Gulf. As for Israel, its offenses are literally inextricable: as a democracy, as a Jewish homeland, as a country in which liberalism in all its forms, including cultural, prevails… If the [Obama] administration’s aim is to appease our enemies, it will get more mileage out of banning Lady Gaga than by applying the screws on Israel.
Naturally, an individual for whom defense of Israel is a reflex reaction will see any anti-terror measures that have a modicum of connection to reality as “appeasement of our enemies.”
Stephens’ position is a tragically common one in conservative and pro-Israel circles. It can be relatively easily disarmed by asking a few very simple questions. If the violent Islamists were primarily concerned with liberal and open cultures that tolerate fun, why have they not targeted societies containing cultures much more libertine than America’s, such as Japan, Brazil, Sweden or Germany? These are societies where the late-night and even some day-time TV programming wouldn’t have a prayer of passing the censors in the US. Why didn’t the Islamists fly a plane into the Tokyo Imperial Palace, instead of the World Trade Center? Why do they not set their sights on the Brandenburg Gate, located in a country for which public nudity is something of a national hobby?
Rio Carnaval: Not exactly Al Qaeda-friendly attire
If Al Qaeda and their ilk were driven mainly by hatred for societies that let women drive, open a bank account or hold a job, why do they not hate countries like China, Russia or Canada to the degree they hate America?
If they are motivated mainly by a hatred for democracy, then why have they not focused their violence on countries like Italy, Greece, India, Thailand or South Africa, all of which would be abundantly easier for them to attack than the US?
It is obvious that, unlike what the “They Hate us for our Freedom” crowd would have us believe, Al Qaeda and their compatriots have chosen to focus on America and Israel for a reason. What is that reason? What is it that, despite similarly liberal cultures, legal frameworks that treat women as humans, democratic forms of government, press freedom and religious pluralism, sets America apart from dozens of other countries around the world? Botched military intervention, blind support for Israel, hypocritical backing of dictatorships from Saddam Hussein to Hafez al-Assad to Pervez Musharraf, to name a few. In short, the net effect of American foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim world over the last 60 years.
There is no question that the violent Islamists hate everyone and everything that does not conform their narrow-minded, backward and psychotic vision of life. But the short term spark that has motivated the vast majority of Islamist fighters around the world for years is the foreign policy decisions of the US and Israeli governments. Only this can explain why these movements enjoy the amount of popular support they do. There will always be violent radicals and religious extremists, in every culture (there are still Nazis in Germany, for example). But what allows those fanatics to attain mainstream support and to enter the lives of average people is the economic and political misfortune that those average people experience at the hands of their “enemy.” Until the US affirms this reality and implements the necessary changes, harsh to the national ego though it may be, it will continue to be in the crosshairs of broad-based Islamic militancy.
April 10th, 2010 by Justin
On the story of Phoebe Prince, Christopher Caldwell in the Financial Times writes:
Prince’s family moved from Ireland to South Hadley, Massachusetts, last autumn so that 14-year-old Phoebe could be near her cousins and get to know the US. Pretty, cheerful, exotic and naive, she had what is described as a “fling” with the star of the football team. A clique of aggressive girls, who coveted that role for themselves, viewed her as a usurper. They organised a campaign of social ostracism and physical intimidation… They called her “the whore” and “the Irish slut”, it is claimed… Prince spent weeks of sobbing and fear before she hanged herself on January 14.
In response to this tragedy, the Massachusetts legislature passed anti-bullying legislation. It is indeed strange that bullying, which has occurred among young people since the beginning of time, is now suddenly an issue that requires legal action. What about the countless billions of children who have experienced bullying since the human race arose? Why was legal action never considered an option until Phoebe Prince? Indeed, why was it not considered an option after Hope Witsell, a 13 year-old Florida girl who similarly killed herself after sexual mocking from peers? The fact that the law has never been invoked against bullying indicates that the real issue is not legal or political in nature. It is cultural. And on this point Caldwell, in spite of some misguidedness, makes some important insights.
One of the reasons anti-bullying must be taught as a set of skills is that we have a wider culture that, in many contexts, holds bullying in high esteem… Getting rid of the old punitive morality that surrounded sexuality seemed like it would do no one any harm, and relieve a lot of unnecessary anguish and guilt. But young people have not reacted to it as theorised. They will gladly skip the “morality” part. But in a world as socially competitive as that of teen dating, the “punitive” part is simply too useful a tool to do without. So people proclaim themselves free of moral hang-ups, and yet throw around words like “slut” and “whore” with an abandon that no previous generation ever did. [emphasis added]
One is reminded of the story of Hope Witsell and the adults who were “responsible” in Florida. Of course, the toxic cocktail of savagery and hypocrisy has many cultural sources, including the parents themselves. On this point Mom Logic is instructive which, at first blush, seems to be a site targeted to well-intentioned moms who are staggeringly naive about the next generation’s behavior, and destructively old-fashioned in their sexual morals. So destructive that the site’s article on Hope Witsell, as well as the accompanying video from the “Today” show, audaciously speak of the “dangers” of sexting, apparently oblivious to the fact that those dangers (like the threat of prosecution for child pornography… for taking naked images of oneself) are totally of their own making, both culturally and legally. In the realm of outdated sexual morays is where the parallels with Hope Witsell are seen most strikingly, although Caldwell doesn’t quite realize it:
It is unlikely there was any moral disapproval in the taunts to which Prince was allegedly exposed. It might have been better if there had been. Moral pretensions might have led her alleged tormenters to look at their own conduct, and reined them in. In place of moralism we have nothing but the will to power and the desire to ostracise – a values system that differs from the old one only in its arbitrariness. [emphasis added]
Oh, so close, Chris! He is right to point out that moral disapproval—primarily on the part of the adults and supposedly “responsible” figures in question—should have been focused on Prince’s bullies. However, he fails to declare that greater disapproval should be and should have been directed at them than at Prince. No doubt in thrall to a traditional sexual morality, Caldwell inadvertently misses the larger part of the story, that sexual activity among teenagers is looked down upon and therefore those who receive insults or mocking for their sexual “deviance” are receiving their just desserts. And yes, this attitude is disturbingly prevalent even in leftist Massachusetts. The adults—in Florida as well as Massachusetts—no doubt had this anti-teen sex mindset in the back of their minds, and therefore were willing to look the other way at Prince’s misfortune, and to punish Witsell. “Well, bullying is bad… but, let’s face it, she shouldn’t have had that fling.”
How responsible. Indeed, how “responsible” for a culture of adults that on the one hand celebrates female sexual liberation, but on the other hand stops just short of telling young people “sex is good, not bad.” That is, a culture that worships youthful feminine beauty and the sexual expression thereof, whilst casting teen oral sex and “sexting” in demonic terms (complete with the shadowy image of a young woman curled up in a ball). Most teenage women in the US understand that they are expected to be sexy… just not too sexy. Not sexy enough, and you’re a prude. Too sexy, and you’re a slut. And how do you know when you’ve crossed the line into one or the other? Well, your peers will let you know, as they did Phoebe Prince and Hope Witsell. Between social conservatives and social liberals, the culture war continues on. And, like in any war, who loses? The weakest among us.
