Globally Rational

Welcome to the 68th edition of Carnival of the Liberals! It was very difficult to choose a reasonable number of articles from the many submissions that I received, but I think I managed to cut it down to the point where it’s not overcrowded.

I also included some comments about each article. I’ll have to say that I was very happy with the quality of the posts, and I expect that you’ll find each of the next 15 articles to be a very interesting read.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the CotL people for letting me host this edition. Also, thanks to all of the bloggers who submitted articles; I hope to see more of your quality work in the future.

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current events

Timothy Martin presents Habeas What? posted at Mouthful of Politics, saying, “This article examines the recent Supreme Court decision returning habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees.”

Shan’s comments It’s nice to see that the right-leaning Supreme Court still occasionally considers the spirit of the Constitution instead of always being politically charged.

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The Ridger presents Hiding the hate posted at The Greenbelt, saying, “”We don’t anyone to know we’re bigots - it might hurt our business.” You think? I hope!”

Shan’s comments I can’t say that I’m surprised. Bigots know that they’re bigots… and they don’t want everybody else to know about it

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liberalism

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Is Olbermann Turning Into O’Reilly? posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

Shan’s comments: I liked this idea; although I agree with most of Olbermann’s ideas, I think he’s become just another angry ranter who always only presents one side of a debate. As long as you’re ignoring your opponents’ arguments, how do you expect to make any difference? It seems that Olbermann is just there to sell his show to fellow liberals… I wish he’s use his position of power to actually persuade some swing voters instead of (literally) yelling at his opponents

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Alonzo Fyfe presents Atheist Ethicist: The Pledge Project: A Memorial Day Dilemma posted at Atheist Ethicist.

Shan’s comments This article doesn’t fit with the usual theme of my blog (talking about issues with a rational, fact-based perspective), but it is a very interesting essay. It’s also a bit older than what the Carnival usually accepts, but I decided to accept it because it’s a great read.

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APH presents Urbanism Legend: Zoning Creates Density posted at Market Urbanism, saying, “In many different contexts, I have heard people argue that liberalizing zoning restrictions will cause “overdevelopment” or high density development filled with low income people. Even in relatively low density areas, people make the sensationalist argument that if zoning restrictions were lifted, high rises would be built in their community, creating congestion and overburdening infrastructure.”

Shan’s comments This article, unlike the last one, fits perfectly with the Globally Rational spirit. I wish more people actually looked at the real economic analysis behind their political decisions… but instead, politicians just try to appeal to people’s emotions

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Greta Christina presents The Messed-Up Teachings of Jesus posted at Greta Christina’s Blog, saying, “A critique of the liberal Christian idea that the teachings of Jesus support progressive ideals, such as peace and tolerance. It provides an extensive list of Jesus’s teachings from the New Testament that run completely counter to some of the most treasured principles of most modern progressives… such as free speech, independent thought, sexual and marital privacy, resisting oppression, and respecting people with different beliefs.”

Shan’s comments I like this article, but you should be sure to take it for what it’s worth. I’m not Christian, but I do like many of Jesus’s original teachings… what this article reminds us is that many of those “original teachings” have evolved and been bastardized by some modern Christian sects

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opinion

Educatorblog presents Do Teachers Influence Blackness? posted at An (aspiring) Educator’s Blog, saying, “A post about race in the classroom.”

Shan’s comments A great idea and a well-developed post. I think many people underestimate the value of teachers in a person’s life… I can definitely say that some of my teachers had a huge impact on the way that I look at the world today. This is one of my favorite articles in this carnival

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Mike Haubrich, FCD presents Detainees Deserve Trials posted at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, saying, “So, what is the deal with Habeas Corpus and the Supreme Court?”

Shan’s comments I couldn’t decide which Guantanamo Habeas Corpus post was better (this one or Timothy Martin’s post earlier in this carnival), so I included them both

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Matthew presents Justice posted at Conservatives and Normals . Com - The Blog, saying, “What is justice and is it individual or social?”

Shan’s comments This post explores one of my favorites topics: the use (and distortion) of semantics to justify people’s pointless ideas. Before we go around throwing around powerful buzzwords like “justice”, we should realize exactly what we’re trying to say

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vjack presents Atheist Revolution: Strengthening American Infrastructure is a Matter of National Security posted at Atheist Revolution.

Shan’s comments People often forget that there’s much more to national security than just killing all of the bad guys. This post is a nice reminder that there are plenty of important ideas within the broader field.

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Doctor Biobrain presents What I Learned From Rush Limbaugh posted at And Doctor Biobrain’s Response Is…

Shan’s comments Quality piece about what Limbaugh (and others like him) seem to be trying to accomplish

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politics

Jeffrey Stingerstein presents » Oh No! John McCain Is Trying to Lose My Vote! Disillusioned Words: atheism, art and politics posted at Disillusioned Words.

Shan’s comments Apparently, John McCain hasn’t read the Constitution. I’m not surprised… he graduated at the bottom of his class, so I doubt that he got an ‘A’ in Political Science 101

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Mike Haubrich, FCD presents Bush is Not the Decider posted at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, saying, “Bush doesn’t want to open an e-mail. Leadership FAIL”

Shan’s comments When I first heard about this, I was astonished. I guess that, after almost 8 years of Bush, I shouldn’t be surprised

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Mike Haubrich, FCD also presents I Would Rather Be Anywhere Else posted at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, saying, “Power in the hands of an imperialist, even if the intentions are initially good, leads to abuse of power. The rule of law should supercede the rule of man.”

Shan’s comments This is another article referring to the Guantanamo Habeas Corpus issue, but this one draws an important parallel between the present and the past. It’s always depressing to see us repeating the past

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opinion

larryniven presents What’s that first step, again? posted at Rust Belt Philosophy, saying, “My blog examines arguments in mass media for argumentative fallacies. In this post, I deconstruct yet another conservative op/ed piece designed to downplay global warming.”

Shan’s comments A good reminder of how to respond to some of the pointless anti-environment arguments.

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And that’s it. Thanks to everybody who submitted articles and, of course, to the carnival staff for allowing me to host this edition. Hopefully, you’ll be seeing this carnival at Globally Rational again sometime in the future.

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We all complain about high gas prices… personally, I’m tired of seeing the complaints. Here’s why:

1. Prices aren’t determined by costs; they’re determined by supply and demand. Our demand for fuel is increasing (case in point: India/China) and the supply is decreasing. My only complaint is that the government wasn’t able to foster a gradual increase (rather than a sudden one, which was a major contributing factor to the recession)… the reason for this is because they were doing everything possible to avoid the inevitable increase, so when they ran out of resources, the prices catapulted to their rightful place.
2. Prices still haven’t increased to the point where we significantly reduce consumption. As long as demand doesn’t decrease, the prices will continue to increase… the only thing that can stabilize the prices is if we stop using as much gas. At that point, the supply and demand curves are intersecting and we’re at the perfect price.
3. Until prices get high enough so that we can’t get by anymore, we’ll never devote adequate resources to alternative energy. Last year, the government spent $200 million on solar power research, about $300 million on nuclear energy and on “other fossil fuels”, and about $400 million on coal. By contrast, we spent $102 billion (about 100 times as much) on the Iraq War. Also, we spend $1.6 billion every day on gasoline (almost $600 billion per year)… that means that we spend more money PER DAY on gas than we do PER YEAR on alternative energy.

As long as we’re spending 500 times as much on gas as we do on alternative energies, how do we expect to really fix our problems? Instead of reducing our gas taxes (like Hillary and McCain were suggesting), I think we should add a little bit of a tax and use it to pay for novel research. In the long run, it will save us money… even if we only increase prices by 1% (about 4 cents per gallon right now, which seems pretty inconsequential with the way that prices have been inflating), that’s enough to multiply our alternative energy research by a factor of 5.

But it seems like we’re stupid enough to demand lower gas prices, even though we know that it will hurt us in the long run. I say that we add a 2% tax to all gas purchases, which would amount to 8 cents a gallon, and use it to multiply alternative energy funding by 10.

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So far, the American healthcare industry has been unnecessarily slow in joining the Information Age.  Although the excuse is usually the fact that they want to ensure safety and confidentiality of patient data, anybody who has ever worked in the industry knows that it’s far easier to misplace a paper file (thousands of which can be found in every doctor’s office) than it is to fall victim to an online hacker.  Honestly, you could call my doctor’s office right now and if you pretend to be me, they’ll give you any information you need.  I think the real reason why many medical practitioners haven’t digitized their records is because many of the administrative assistants in the industry don’t like anything to change (for instance, I once worked for a doctor who had to buy a more expensive and less effective piece of software just because it was the only program with which his assistant was familiar).

And this is why I’m not Libertarian… this is another example of a case where the government needs to intervene; in this case, the purpose is to make sure that our healthcare system doesn’t have pointless inefficiencies.  Luckily, Congress jumped in this time to create penalties for physicians who don’t start using electronic prescriptions.  I see a lot of advantages:

• This signals the end of the notorious “illegible doctor’s handwriting” issue.
• Patients often have serious complications from drug interactions, usually because their physician doesn’t know what other drugs they are taking.  E-prescriptions will allow doctors and pharmacists to have an automated system that throws up a red flag every time a patient is about to get a drug that could interact harmfully with one of their other drugs.
• That same automated system will also reduce allergic reactions to drugs.
• The process for prescriptions and refills will become much more efficient.  Right now, a patient can’t get a refill on a prescription until it the pharmacy gets approval from the patient’s physician, which typically takes hours or days.
• This will do wonders for quality control; it will be very easy to see if a doctor is favoring more profitable drugs (pharmaceutical companies often provide incentives for doctors to prescribe certain drugs) when the patient would be better off with a cheaper alternative.

And that’s just a few things that I can think of off the top of my head.  Feel free to post any other pros/cons in the comments… if they’re legitimate, I’ll add them to the list.

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It’s common for a Presidential nominee to replace the chair of his party with one of his own people.  Although Barack Obama’s recent decision to keep Howard Dean as the DNC chair was minor news at best, I think it’s much more important than the media has made it seem.  I think the foreshadowing is undeniable; this will tell us a lot about what a potential Obama presidency would be like.  Here are some things that jump out at me:

• Obama did not install one of his cronies, which would be a huge change over past Presidencies.  In fact, some people at the University of Chicago (whose law and economics programs are among the best in the world) are worried that Obama will steal all of their best professors and put them into his cabinet.
• Howard Dean (a licensed physician) and Barack Obama (a Harvard-educated lawyer who was offered a tenure-track faculty position at one of America’s best law schools) are both highly intelligent and highly educated.  This gives me hope that we’re approaching an America where politicians work together and make intelligent decisions for the benefit of the country instead of trying to benefit their own respective political campaigns.
• A lesser-known fact: Obama and Dean have both strayed substantially from their parents’ life views, which suggests to me that they embrace change and positive development.  Howard Dean grew up in a conservative family and Obama has written (among other similar things) that “my mother’s confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn’t possess… In a land [Indonesia] where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship… she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.”

I’m hoping that this is a positive sign for Obama’s campaign and, eventually, his Presidency.  It’s no secret to my regular readers that I’m a bit biased (I’ve supported Obama ever since Ron Paul fell into oblivion and McCain started to turn into another Bush), but am I wrong?

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Yesterday, I outlined the best possible sequence of events that could follow from Israel’s recent prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. The best-case scenario required some forward thinking from the educated part of the population, which would (hopefully) eventually start to promote tolerance. However, here is what will happen if even the educated people let their emotions supersede their rationality (which seems pretty common for enemies):

• May/June 2008: Israel works out a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah (done).
• The next few months: The public, both Israelis and Palestinians, openly resent that their side is negotiating with the enemy.
• The next year or two: Public resentment makes it more difficult for politicians to justify any sort of communication between the two sides.
• The next 3-4 years: Violence continues as usual and open political talks become a distant memory. Public opinion remains irrationally heated.
• The next decade or so: Communication is impossible; each side’s general public sentiment is that the other side needs to be simply eradicated.
• Another 10-20 years later: One of the two sides achieves its goal of killing enough people so that the enemy is forced to abandon their homes.

Of course, we don’t want this scenario to come true. Whoever wins, the end result is bad. That’s why I think that the only solution to the problem is through education… Americans need to be educated about the world, locals need to be educated about tolerance, and everybody needs to learn that it’s really not that hard to live in harmony.

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I think we can all agree that the best possible solution to the Israel problem would be something that involves minimal violence and casualties.  So here is what I’m expecting (as promised in yesterday’s post):

Best-case (realistic)

• May/June 2008: Israel works out a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah (done).
• The next few months: the first exchange gives way to more exchanges.
• The next year or two: more exchanges lead to semi-open talks between Israel and Palestinian groups.
• The next 3-4 years: Semi-open talks slowly evolve into open talks.
• The next decade or so: Open political talks eventually become accepted by the public, which means that they automatically hate each other a little bit less.
• Another 5-10 years later: As the hatred fades, some educated Israelis and Palestinians begin to live in the same areas without killing each other.
• Hopefully, as the more educated people start to live in harmony, this sentiment trickles down to the rest of the public.

Of course, plenty of people will want to say that “the Israelis should all just get out of the Middle East” or “the Palestinians should just go somewhere else”, but I think we can all agree that such an evacuation is highly unlikely.  Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the worst-case scenario.

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Until recently, Israel has been adamant about not negotiating with Hamas and Hezbollah; they went so far as to condemn Jimmy Carter for meeting with Hamas leaders. George W. Bush even visited Israel a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their statehood (which many Palestinians considered a slap in the face because that day was also the 60th anniversary of the day that they were forced to leave their homes). But recently, in a move that is almost shocking to me, Israel actually decided to swap prisoners with Hezbollah.

I think this is a step in the right direction. As I have written once before, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the only way to reach a permanent solution is to achieve a peaceful solution. If the Israelis and the Palestinians continue to kill each other, then the war will go on until one side or the other is extinct (which can’t happen as long as the US supports Israel and the Arabs outnumber the Israelis). But once the doors are open to peaceful talks, the angry population will slowly cool down until they reach the point where they can live together peacefully.

Tomorrow I’ll predict the best-case and worst-case scenarios (and maybe one in between).

EDIT: Here are the next two posts, also of interest
Click here for the best-case scenario
Click here for the worst-case scenario

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If you do a Google search for “rise and fall of the empire”, you’ll get lots of results about the British and Roman empires, and maybe about the Third Reich. You might also see something about the great post-medieval empires, such as those of Spain, France, Portugal, the Ottomans, and the Mughals. There’s a possibility that you’ll read about the great powers of ancient Egypt or Babylon. You may even see something about Japan during World War II.

I predict that in 80 years, somebody will write a book called “The Rise and Fall of the American Empire.” As we stand at the pinnacle of international American influence, we are nearly oblivious to the fact that we are clearly following the same pattern that so many empires did in the past. Ever since we extended our influence to the California in the Mexican War, the empire has been steadily growing and, I believe, reached its peak soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Just think about it:

1836: US-born settlers in Texas revolt for independence from Mexico; soon, they joined the US.
1848: We take California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada from Mexico in a war that was supposedly fought to help Texas keep their independence.
1894: We depose the independent ruler of Hawaii and take control of the state.
1898: In a war that was claimed to be for the purpose of helping Cuba gain independence from Spain, we somehow end up getting Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines. This was followed by the little-known Philippine-American war, where we killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos because we didn’t want to give them independence.
1900: The US claims what is now known as American Samoa.
1903: US warships deployed to help Panama separate from Colombia (so that we could take control of the planned Panama Canal Zone).
1917: The US purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark (of course, they didn’t ask the locals for their opinion).
Various times in the 1910’s - 1950’s: US occupies Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.
1945: We occupy Japan, West Germany, and many other territories after World War II. We finally let go of the Philippines.
1948: We create Israel with no regard to what will happen to the people (Palestinians) who were already living there.
After 1945: The Pax Americana, a short period of peace (caused by the Cold War) analagous to Rome’s Pax Romana and Britain’s Pax Britannica. I’m not sure how this theory accounts for Korea and Vietnam.

After World War II, the line between “war” and “not war” has become vague. Since then, we have established spheres of influence (via war) in South Korea, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and other countries. We have also failed to establish such areas in Vietnam and Afghanistan. For a large portion of the Cold War, the world was split into the “American Bloc”, the “Soviet Bloc”, and the “Third World”.

That was the rise. The fall started slowly when we lost control of Cuba, then the Philippines (although that turned out alright), the North Korea, then Vietnam, then Afghanistan… and now we’re in a pointless campaign in Iraq. Our biggest trading partner (China) refuses to acknowledge the independence of Tibet and Taiwan. We have troops all over the world in places that don’t want our troops. We act like a corrupt international police force, choosing to participate in the most lucrative areas and ignoring the most dangerous areas (i.e. North Korea). We keep stretching… and any good chess player knows what happens when you overextend.

If you overextend in chess, you create weaknesses, as the British and the Romans did, that your opponent will eventually exploit. We have slowly let go of various parts of our empire (Cuba, the Philippines, the Panama Canal Zone, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau) as we attempt to reach out to other parts of the world. We are starting to realize that we overextended in Iraq, but we are still seriously contemplating an invasion of Iran. Meanwhile, there are still state-supported terrorist groups that hate us in North Korea. As we take control of the world, we are simultaneously isolating ourselves from the globalizing economy because we are trying to balance our imports and exports. We refuse to accept that the only way to decrease our reliance on imports is to eliminate the income gap that causes imported products to be so much cheaper than American products.

The British did the same thing. The Romans did it slower and the Third Reich did it faster. The Mongols were more aggressive and the Spanish were more innovative. But they all followed the same trend:

1. Imperialism starts; country reaches out to the world.
2. Country becomes a world power.
3. Country gets arrogant and starts to flex its muscles.
4. Country bites off more than it can chew… soon, it is forced to withdraw from its international outposts.

Spain and Britain survived the crash, but lost their power. The leaders of the Mughals and the Third Reich, on the other hand, ended up being executed or committing suicide as their empires fell. We are following the same trends… if we don’t avoid this overextension, we’ll suffer a similar fate.

How do we fix it? Like the answer to everything on this blog: awareness and education. It would be nice if the average American knew the difference between Lebanon and Syria.

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I read a great article today in which a bunch of experts gather together to talk about what globalization will do to world languages.

Here are some excerpts, in case you don’t want to read the whole thing. Of course, my comments are at the end.

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Rudimentary English might still be the most convenient means of oral or written communication between strangers of different cultures on planet Earth, but globalization is giving a new (virtual) planetary presence to hundreds of languages and cultures through millions of Web sites, mixing text and videos.

The big loser? Grammar.

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My friends and colleagues question me from time to time about whether a website like mine that helps people around the world learn English is necessarily a good thing.

But last I checked, learning one language doesn’t cause you to forget another. More than half the world plays soccer, but other sports continue to thrive. Why should languages be any different?
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Don’t underestimate the value of knowing languages other than English in a globalized world. Nothing makes a trip to Japan better than knowing Japanese and if you’re bidding on a contract in India, the proposal written in Hindi is sure to stand out. A philosopher who can read German articles before they’re translated has an edge on his peers.

In fact, globalization means that we have more reason than ever to learn a language.

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It’s obvious that globalization will tend to wipe out smaller languages and cultures — but if you search the web for “soomaaliya” or “gabay ka,” you’ll find more text from the world-wide Somali diaspora than was ever produced in the horn of Africa. It’s obvious that globalized communications and popular culture will tend to homogenize local language varieties — but some varieties of English seem to be diverging more rapidly than ever.

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To many people, then, the spread of English seems a positive thing, symbolizing employment, education, modernity, and technology. But to plenty of others it seems ominous.

They hold it responsible for grinding down or homogenizing their identities and interests. It tends to equalize values and desires, without doing the same for opportunities.

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To me, the worst possible consequence of the spread of English is the potential loss of “culture”. But is that really all that bad? Although our emotions may say that we want to maintain as much of our “heritage” as possible, does that idea really carry any practical benefit? Traditional values can be maintained in any language; why does every country have to maintain a separate “identity?” I don’t like to identify myself as an English speaker or an Urdu speaker or a Pakistani-American… I’d rather call myself a “human” or a “citizen of the world.”

I think it’s ridiculous to resist the changes that will, hopefully, someday allow us all to communicate better with one another. In a perfect society, every person will work towards the betterment of the entire world instead of just thinking about their own ethnic group. The first step towards that society is to have a common language that allows us all to talk to each other without losing anything in translation.

People may say “why does English get to be the world’s language?” Well, I think that question can be answered by the simple fact that English is easier to implement than any other language. Coming from a person whose first language is Urdu/Hindi, I’ll say right now that I’d much rather work towards establishing a global English-speaking community than a global Urdu/Hindi-speaking community… even though over 600 million people already speak Urdu/Hindi, we all know that English is already becoming a global language and it would be crazy to try to change that now.

I think the potential benefits of this change are obvious… can you think of any downsides?

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I’d like to announce the first edition of “Predictions,” scheduled for June 3, 2008. This will be a “blog carnival” whose purpose is to bring together blog posts using rational thought processes to point out interesting trends that our society seems to be following.

Click here to view details or to find out how to submit an article.

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