22 December 2014

RULE BY RADICALS

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio faces a crisis of his own making with the police department, as a result of his own radicalism. Whatever the merits of the Eric Garner case, he did not respond thoughtfully or responsibly but ideologically, going on about racism, injustice and the police, and making broad, general statements having little to do with the actual case. There was no doubt that his activist heart was with street protesters, but you can’t run a city that way. Instead of rising above the fray, as he today ironically said a leader is supposed to do, he pontificated about the failings of society and yet again brought in his son, this time as a potential victim of the police. Then, having burned all the bridges with the NYPD, when two officers were subsequently murdered  over the weekend, he could only grasp at the one straw still available to him- the families of the victims, as a rationale for standing down. 

Even worse, the radicals who dominate the City Council, in an unprecedented and reprehensible gesture not only encouraged, but participated in demonstrations against their own police department, in solidarity with the Mayor. The odious NY State Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, apparently taking a break from corporate shakedowns, in a naked power grab, announced he would investigate NY City police incidents, which brought an immediate rebuke from the DAs of the majority of the boroughs of the city. It is relatively early in the terms of all of these clowns, and they are only getting started. Things will only get worse. 

The basic reason for this is that radicals cannot govern effectively. They view everything through an ideological lens, and can only reckon with things based on how they comport with that vision. They not only lack any ability to approach things pragmatically; they reject pragmatism altogether. They are not liberals, but hard-left radicals. As a result, more and more things are not going to work as they should. A clash with the NYPD was almost inevitable, given their attitude towards law enforcement. Never before in the history of this city have we seen such contempt for the police on the part of public officials. Given their mindset it is no surprise that even when they try to make nice they only make things worse. Thus, after instigating much of the damage himself, the Mayor now wants to talk about “healing” and “coming together” which is what leftists do after they have irreversibly poisoned the well.


I predicted things would go bad last year, here: http://www.georgesarant.com/2013/10/the-ny-city-commune-of-2014.html. There will eventually be a correction because New York is not a radical town; it isn’t even all that liberal. Until then, hopefully the damage won’t be too bad. In the mean time, after what these public officials have done, there is no way the police are going to be mollified until there is a change, at which point my guess is that the public will be more sympathetic to the NYPD than this batch of politicians. 

21 December 2014

MINORITY RULE



During the holidays we inevitably are faced with objections from atheists regarding public Christmas displays. In their view, nothing connected to religion is allowed in the public sphere. We can argue about just what is religious, or what constitutes the public sphere, but what I want to address here is something more fundamental- the question, stated simply, of who is going to get their way. For whenever a symbol that is interpreted to be religious is removed because a small minority object, or simply because someone might object, the effect is not just to assuage the concerns of the minority in some neutral fashion, but to impose their preferences on the majority. 

We are ever sensitive to the rights of the minority, as we should be in a democratic republic, and believe they never should be oppressed, but such rights do not extend to imposing the minority view over everyone else. There is almost always going to be someone raising objections to just about anything the great majority of people are comfortable with. Should those who raise  objections always have their way? There are some who in effect maintain this position, to the extent that anyone who finds anything offensive must be indulged at the expense of the majority and common sense. 

There are some things about which legal claims are invariably made, that are not matters of law. If there were some sort of legal discrimination against a minority it would be unconstitutional, but there are no “cultural” rights (with the exception of Indians) outside of universities that have invented them. In symbolic and cultural matters the preferences of the majority should prevail. No one is being forced to adhere to them, nor is anyone being harmed. When the norms of the majority in society are not respected the social order becomes untenable. If the majority feels challenged or under siege it will react. For minority rights to be respected at all there has to be a cohesive majority that feels secure. There must be a prevailing majority ethos in society, otherwise there is at the very least alienation and instability, and ultimately social collapse.

In a courthouse where the ten commandments have been posted for over a century, and where they have been established by tradition and convention, it is a stretch to argue that they are banned by the constitution, which simply states that the government cannot establish a particular religion, not that religion is altogether prohibited from public life. I personally am not religious, but I recognize that most people are, and it is their sentiments that ought to prevail whenever such questions are raised. Those who want to ban Christmas displays are part of a constant chorus claiming that all minorities have rights, but the majority never has any rights. 

The objections of a few to virtually anything basically boils down to saying we don’t like that, and because it offends, bothers, or otherwise disturbs us it must be removed. Society cannot possibly function if in any instance that someone finds something objectionable that thing must be eliminated; it would then be impossible for there to be anything common. If every claim of this sort is honored it leaves society in an acultural state, and social bonds are severely weakened. 

But to maintain that the majority ought to prevail in such matters is not unfettered majoritarianism. The minority is still protected. Crucially, when the majority prevails it is not forcing anything on a minority. The minority is not being compelled to succumb to the majority position or practices.  It is therefore absurd to require that the majority submit to the minority position, but this is what constantly happens when a minority effectively vetoes the majority, often due to nothing more than the timidity of those charged with the administration of various venues. Christmas is a custom that has been with us for ages and cannot suddenly be undone on the basis of a theory. Thus there is no possible justification for allowing a minority that has deliberately singled out the holiday to spoil Christmas for everyone else.

12 December 2014

NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE DEMOCRATS


On their way out of controlling the US Senate, the Democrats appear to be possessed with a desire to break all the windows. It is as though they are never coming back, and if the mentality behind this scorched earth policy prevails, they may well not return any time soon. What is to be gained by releasing, on an entirely partisan basis, their CIA interrogation report five years after enhanced interrogations were banned and eleven years after the last terror suspect was water-boarded? Why do this now when in the past, secrets from World War II as well as the Kennedy administration were kept for many, many years? What can possibly justify spending $40 million on a process that didn’t even bother to interview principle program managers, and incomprehensibly, no CIA Directors? Apart from massaging liberal consciences there is no purpose to this. 

It provides rhetorical fuel to enemies of the United States, particularly those regularly abusing human rights, although it is hard to see how much waterboarding is going to motivate terrorists who are currently beheading people and already hate us. It is more troubling that, in attacking the intelligence services, and increasingly the military, which formerly had bi-partisan support, they have gone off the rails.  Even Barack Obama, the most liberal president ever elected, is now being attacked by the left.

John Kennedy would have a hard time fitting in to today’s Democratic party. Kennedy was a moderate who cut taxes and was strong on national security.  In the year he was elected Hubert Humphrey was the liberal candidate in the primaries, not JFK. (The myth that he was a progressive emerged later in the 60s when Bobby Kennedy became radicalized and moved the Kennedy family towards liberalism). It is toxic for a major party to be perceived as anti-national security given how little support that view has. To assuage their left the Democrats are alienating a majority of the population.

The issue here is not whether enhanced interrogation, which can still be distinguished from torture, is wrong or right. It is broadcasting what our intensions, strategy and position are, as if the the rest of the world was somehow composed of liberal humanitarians, rather than a large number of odious regimes and players. In reality we still face a serious terrorist threat. It is hard to find anything in these actions that is not detrimental to our security.

Liberals think it was “important” to issue this report at this time, not for any treasonous reasons, but rather due to righteous indignation and the warm and fuzzy feelings that comes with saying “we’re better than that.” By asserting “principle” over the lives of these people they play into the hands of those whose principles are far removed from their own, and put all of us in greater danger. But this vain exercise comes at great cost, as a result of throwing the people who risk their lives under the bus while they pontificate in safety and security. For in the real world, as George Orwell wrote, “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”