Inaugural Post

Welcome to my new blog. I hope to make good use of this platform for debate, discussion, and contemplation. As my introduction says, my primary purpose is to put my thoughts out there in order to have them scrutinized and challeneged so that I may improve them. Thus, I welcome your thoughts.

I had decided that I was going to start blogging several weeks ago and so I created this account. However, it was not until earlier this afternoon that I wrote something substantial that I really wanted to see published on this forum. So here we go.

This is a general summary of my political beliefs. I adapted it from an e-mail that I just recently sent out. For those of you who know me, most of this will sound familiar, although some of it may be a surprise. For others who do not, it may appear quite out of the ordinary. I welcome your reaction.

I am very socially liberal. From a political standpoint, I think every individual has the right to do whatever they want with their own lives, as long as it does not directly harm anyone else. I am against any law designed to protect us from ourselves. Taking drugs and using alcohol excessively is absolutely harmful to the individual. However, if a person wants to make that awful choice, that is their own right. If a person wants to smoke or eat excessively, despite the negative health effects, that is their right. So, I am completely against all drug laws, and penalties against food & tobacco companies. Granted, I think huge harms are being done by tobacco companies, certain food companies, and drug dealers. Regardless, it is the right of every individual to control their OWN body. (The only fuzzy area here is with children. I think we have a general health epidemic in children today, and I find the targeting of children by food & tobacco companies to be appalling. It is one thing for grown adults to make bad choices - that is their own fault. But most children do not know any better, and I find the general lifestyle of many of today's children to be tragic. That however, is another topic).

Immigration is a good topic. I am extremely liberal on immigration policy as well. I believe that we should have completely open borders. I do think that we should be checking for criminal or terrorist backgrounds - but it should be VERY easy to become a citizen of the U.S. The main reason why so many "illegal" immigrants enter the country instead of applying for citizenship is that it is really difficult to become a U.S. citizen due to quotas and waiting periods. We live in a HUGE country with tons of opportunity. We are not even close to being overcrowded - and there is a ton more room for economic development. If it were extremely easy to be granted citizenship, I guarantee that the vast majority of "illegal" immigrants in this country would vie for citizenship. There is no benefit in being an illegal unless it is really hard to actually become a citizen - which unfortunately it currently is.

Gay marriage is another good topic. On this issue I am also extremely liberal. We should recognize gay marriage completely - not just civil unions. Who cares about the sex of the person that other people love? We are all human beings, let people love whomever they want. The only potential issue here is in the economic benefits of marriage. Married couples, by law, enter a contractual relationship that provides them with different economic benefits than single individuals. I could see certain situations where the sex of the individuals in the marriage could have an impact. Insurance companies often give different rates to men and women, for a variety of reasons. It's certainly possible that insurance companies would want to give two married men a different economic benefit than a married man and women, for valid economic reasons. But, this is a trivial issue. It would be extremely easy to resolve any such situations, and it has absolutely no effect on the morality of same-sex marriage.

So, you can probably see a pattern developing. Every single individual has the right to their own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. What they want to do with their life and their property is absolutely their own affair, regardless of whether their decision is a good one or not. Politically, the ONLY check against their behavior is that they must not violate the same right of other individuals to live their own lives.

Government, most of all, must stay out of everyone's lives. As you'll see, this makes me an economic conservative. I do not believe in any form of government welfare, social security, medicare, public school education, or any other social program created and controlled by the government. Yes, there are a lot of people who need a great many things, but no amount of need places a mortage on your own life. It is my firm belief that no individual can impose an unwarranted obligation on the other. If I am rich, it is not my obligation to redistribute that wealth - especially if my fortune was created through my own effort. If you are rich, and you want to help out others, that is absolutely your right. Create private charities, raise a lot of money, and help those people out. But, to go to the government, have them point a gun at everyone else, and forcibly take money from them to serve what you think is right - that is the ultimate perversion of justice and morality. The graduated income tax is one of the most perverse injustices that our government has ever perpetrated. Money is forcibly stolen from the most productive members of society. The kicker - the more productive and virtuous you are - the more money is to be stolen from you! Now, I understand that there are a lot of people out there that are suffering through no fault of their own. It is not my intention to punish such people for the increased benefit of those who already have a lot. I do claim however that NO amount of suffering creates an obligation on anyone else. As unfortunate and tragic as a person's suffering may be, it does not erase the right of another individual to his own life and property. There is a lot more to say about the kind of society that I think would exist without government-sponsored welfare, but for now I will settle for just a statement of principles.

There is a lot to say about our foreign policy, but it is also the area in which my opinions have experienced the most flux over the years. I think that the legitimacy of a government is founded upon the treatment of every one of its citizens, NOT upon whether it is a "democracy." Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party were voted into power by the majority of the German populace, but the Nazis did not constitute a legitimate government, and deserved to be attacked and toppled. As a mostly free society, we do have the right to defend ourselves against dictatorships and totalitarian regimes that threaten us directly. However, I am of the opinion that the strongest weapon we have is our values, not our military. The best way to spread freedom and maintain peace is through completely free trade and open borders. Through free trade and open borders, we export the best of American values to everyone else. I consider globalization to be a very positive thing. Also, I see no reason why we cannot all benefit from global trade and also preserve our cultures and live together. That being said, there are people who do not want any part in a global economy, a global culture. As much of the world has progressed into modernity, I see much of the Middle East stagnating in the Middle Ages. Of all the world's religions, Islam has maintained the most antiquated notions of morality and politics, and has refused to modernize. While we recognize and appreciate the value to the separation of church and state (well the good ones among us, anyway), many in the Middle East want the infusion of mosque into EVERYTHING in our lives. The worst of this comes from militant Islam that seek to establish a global Islamic theocracy. Unfortunately, I do not think that this militant position of Islam exists only in the very small minority. Quite the opposite, I think the majority of Muslims want a world dominated by Islam. While many disagree with the extremely brutal tactics that some militants use, I think that many agree with the ultimate goal. (I should state that American Muslims - as far as I know, are more assimilated and less interested in the global influence of Islam - they simply want to be able to perserve their culture and worship in their own way). To sum up, I honestly think that what we are seeing is fundamentally a clash of civilizations - of basic philosophies and ways of looking at the world. I also think that many in the Islamic world are very serious about seeing their goals fulfilled. What we are facing is not a conflict against a small band of criminals but rather a large conflict of world war proportions.

What remains to be seen is how exactly to confront this problem. I think that nothing short of the modernization of Islam will do. Long ago, Christianity was insistent that the church control the state, and that Christianity be spread beyond its borders. But then we had the Renaissance, the rebirth of reason, and the flourishing in Western Civilization that has been the result. The Islamic world needs to go through the same process. I am of the position that military intervention and occupation will not forcibly create this monumental shift. Revolutions that attempt to force an ideology onto the populace that does not already have the preconditions for accepting those principles on their own always fail in the long-run. The American Revolution was a success because as colonists, the American people had come to value self-reliance, independence, and freedom. These preconditions do not yet exist in the Islamic world, and they cannot be forcibly applied. President Bush is of the opinion that since these values exist inherently in all people, all that is necessary is to liberate people from tyranny and they will become the perfect society. As we can clearly see, that is not the case. Many of the people in Iraq are motivated by adherence to their particular religious sect, and they care very little for self-reliance or autonomy. Many do what their clerics tell them to do - which at the moment is - kill each other and fight for dominance. They do not want to vote for leaders that will bring freedom and self-reliance, but rather they vote for those politicians that reflect their particular religious sect. The majority of Iraq consists of Shi'ite Muslims, and surprise surprise, the current Iraqi government is a coalition of several Shi'ite religious parties. The Sunni's, having terrorized and oppressed the rest for generations, now rightly fear that they are going to be oppressed by the Shi'ites. Thus, they would rather see Iraq implode and return to Sunni dominance.

What ultimately creates stability and prosperity in a country is NOT democracy. Democracy is simply allowing the populace to vote for their preferred leaders. That in itself does absolutely nothing to secure stability and freedom. If the people vote for bad leaders who choose to run their country into the ground, there is nothing that can be done to counter this, if democracy is the only cornerstone of a country. What DOES make up the foundation of a prosperous society is the recognition and protection of the rights of the individual. The protection of these rights must be firmly entrenched in a constitution, with the institutions present to continually ensure that they are protected. But most importantly, a prosperous society requires the convinction in its citizens that freedom, independence, and capitalism are good things. These paramount conditions do not exist in the Middle East at all. Therefore, President Bush's mission to bring "democracy" to the Middle East was destined to be an utter failure from the very beginning. It is true that what the Middle East needs is an ideological revolution, but this cannot be successfully imposed through military force.

Now, our hands our tied in a complete waste of a war that will not improve. As far as I am concerned, Iraq is not really a country. It consists of three different groups (Kurds, Shi'ites, and Sunni's) that only got along because of fear of the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. In recent months I have been getting closer and closer to the convinction that we should withdraw our troops immediately, and move on. However, I will say that our military strategy and tactics are quite up to debate in my mind.

What I am very concerned about is Iran. Iran is the essence of everything that is wrong with the Middle East. They are the founders of modern Islamic theocracy, and they are extremely militant. We have very clear evidence of their direct influence in creating chaos in Iraq as well as Lebanon. President Ahmanedijad is an aspiring Hitler as far as I am concerned. I am unsure how much you follow the news and what you have heard about him, but he has repeatedly called for the complete destruction of Israel and denies the existence of the Holocaust. Iran was just the host to a worldwide conference questioning the Holocaust, which included a vast array of anti-Semitic and hateful groups. Iran started the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and, we have alarming evidence about Iran's influence in manipulating pre-war intelligence about the nature of Saddam's WMD program. Most importantly, they are determined to have a nuclear weapons program. An Islamic state that wants to create a global theocracy and has shown on countless occasions that it does not shy away from bloodshed scares the living crap out of me. I am utterly convinced that a larger war in the Middle East, involving Iran, is completely inevitable, whether it is started by us, by Israel, or by something done by the Iranians.

So what should our foreign policy be in general? There's still so much ground to cover, and so many other issues to comment on, but there are plenty of more discussions for that! But to sum up, free trade, open borders, and capitalism should be our primary means of creating and maintaining peace. However, there are people and countries out there that want to destroy us and the West, and simply wishing that they will change their minds somehow will only lead to trouble in the long-run. President Bush's plan to revolutionize the Middle East through occupation and bringing democracy is and always will be an utter failure. The only option that I see left is to use the military simply to reduce the capability that countries have to harm us. Nothing will come of an invasion and occupation of Iran. Their nuclear ambitions however could be halted through precision air strikes, covert ground operations, and wholesale support of Iranian student opposition groups. But, to do so would require for Bush to admit that his democratization of the Middle East was a complete mistake, and to commit himself to another war. Politically, there is no way he can do this. In other words, we live in a very scary world.

If you are still reading by this point, I thank you for your attention and welcome your thoughts. I look forward to using this forum frequently.