Archive for February, 2009
Disassembling the Empire
This is my first post on Urbanagora, so here is your brief how do and hello before I get right into it. Politically, I am probably most accurately described as a left/libertarian. I was a big (though growing ever more disillusioned) Obama supporter. I am increasingly convinced of the basic correctness of the foreign policy views of the Ron Paul wing of the Republican Party, summarized well here.
The United States has been on a war footing now nonstop for 65 years. It spends more on its military than the next twelve nations combined. The notion that we need to militarily dominate the world is not seriously questioned in political circles, and it is time for that to stop. The reasons for having a large military, notably WWII and the Cold War, are gone. So why then has American defense policy not seriously changed? The reason, I submit, is that this is how everyone alive has always remembered it, and it would be weird for it to be any other way. Add this to the entrenched economic interests of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about, and it is a recipe for inertia.
It should be clear now that we just can’t afford it anymore. The bases all over the world, the foreign and military aid, the new weapons systems, it all costs money, money that we obviously need to bail out banks. It has gotten to the point that we are only fighting our own blowback, no doubt creating the next Osama bin Laden, who will, in turn, be used to justify the same bloated defense budget years down the line. The current economic situation presents an opportunity. The country is long on obligations and short on cash. Now is the time for bold deeds. Now is the time to disassemble the empire.
NO EARMARKS!!!
Bear with me people…I’m an engineer, not an artist.
The Dumbing Down of Smart
I’m hardly the first person to rant against the Chicago Tribune’s idiotic new format, but one thing in particular got my blood a-boilin’ this morning.
You see, each section of the Sunday Trib now has a pithy name: real estate is Homes, the auto section is Rides, etc. But then there’s this one: Smart.
Feeling less cynical than usual this morning, I wondered: “what is Smart? Maybe it features science and technology, or in-depth investigative reporting?” I was curious, so I pulled it out of the plastic bag.
Smart’s front page didn’t offer much insight. The tagline at the upper right says “Faster, Cheaper, Better,” and the featured article “A Model of Health” talks about a singer’s career and eating habits. Interior headlines include “4 steps to ‘Shopaholic’ waves”, “10 tips for buying outerwear,” “Warm coats the province of Canadians,” and my favorite, “The year of living without pants.” Oh, and there’s a Sudoku puzzle on the back, in case it wasn’t enough of a clusterfuck.
So in short, I still don’t know what Smart is. And it’s not the first time.
“Smart” has become the buzzword for a number of things in the past few years covering health, environmental benefits, lower cost, better gas mileage, and things you can check your email with. It’s a term being applied to mean “better” in so many ways that it’s starting to lose all meaning at all. If anything, using the word smart has become the mating call of stupid people.
I want to see a return to the old “smart”. When a person is labeled smart, I want to see some prowess at math or sharp reasoning skills, not well-coordinated accessories. And if you claim your new product is smart, it better have some form of artificial intelligence, not just fewer calories.
Or maybe smart folks should start using the word “intelligent”. Too many syllables? Hard to spell? Good. Sit your smart ass down.
Turning Inward?
The economic crisis is pushing nations in two directions: first, inward toward protectionist or isolationist policies; second, toward developing an international system that can respond to and prevent these crises. How we handle these pressures will affect our economy, our security, and the way we think about the world. Read more…
Greatest Active Film Directors
Entertainment Weekly recently came out with a list of its “25 Greatest Active Film Directors.” It’s a horrible list. The ordering, the omissions – it’s borderline offensive. As a public service, I have both corrected EW’s list and expanded it to the top 50. Seriously, no need to thank me.
Improving Urban Transportation
I’m quite literally dropping a very short policy paper on the balance between individual transportation and mass transit alternatives.
Introduction
Urban transportation involves highly complex and interrelated systems which people use as a means to accomplish a variety of ends. Transportation in urban areas can take the form of pedestrian traffic, bicycling, private automobiles, buses, and railways. Each of these forms has its functional purpose as well as limitations. This paper will focus primarily upon the use of private automobiles and mass transit systems (buses and railways) in urban areas as well as their benefits, problems, and potential solutions to those problems.
- A magnetic levitation train
Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party
If you watch CNBC, you know Rick Santelli. He reports from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I love his fire. The polemicist goes nuts in the video below about the recent bailout bill and its socialist implications. He proposes a Chicago Tea Party and the idea has some traction.
I find it sad that we forget the values that have made us the most powerful nation in history – economic liberty and limited government intervention – when fear overwhelms logic. Our economy is too complex for the federal government to micromanage it. If America maintains its dominance during China’s rise, it will be because of inefficient and corrupt intervention in the marketplace from the Chinese government. Markets require extensive regulation to prevent them from self-destructing, but market intervention is distinct from market regulation. Economists still debate whether FDR’s Keynesian spending programs hurt or helped the economy. Markets fluctuate and we must learn to accept years of recession. We cope with recessions because in the long-run free markets will generate a far greater abundance than enslaved markets. Big government spending tends to create moral hazard, be inefficient, create abundant opportunities for corruption and create a network of perverse incentives.
A Facebook group and a website have been started to organize the Santelli revolutionaries. I have joined the Facebook group.
While I agree with many of Obama’s social views, I chose not to vote for Obama because I fear his faith in the slimy squid tentacles of the federal government and his lack of faith in the system of economics that has created an abundance of wealth, health, education, universities, food, luxury, travel, philosophy, art, music and film – all of the things that make us human.
Perhaps after reading this post you will no longer doubt my conservative credentials.
Get Out of My House
The conservative New York Post published the above cartoon depicting police officers shooting a monkey dead and then implying that the monkey authored the stimulus bill. It is not a large logical leap to assume that the cartoon’s author used the monkey as a symbol of President Obama. The best we can say for the cartoon’s author is that he has revealed racial insensitivity and ignorance of American history. All of this reminds me of the Danish Muslim cartoon fiasco a few years ago. Brian Pierce and I wrestled each other in the Daily Illini on this issue. Why do cartoons have the ability provoke more ire than words?
This cartoon troubles me. I debated whether to post it on Urbanagora for fear of promoting it rather than deriding it. However, in all but a few instances I support free speech with vigor and rage, even when the speech offends millions of people. What we learn about the ignorance of the author can only be learned by allowing him to speak. The full breadth of an idiot’s idiocy can only be known if we allow him to speak. The cartoon’s audience also learns what offends people and why it offends them. We learn how to better distinguish between idiotic speech and valuable speech. Read more…
Self Censorship and Image
When I first wrote for Urbanagora, I had full administrative privileges, including the ability to delete comments. In one of my first articles someone posted a completely off-topic troll response and I deleted it. I remember someone coming to me and explaining to me the benefits of not doing such things. He told me that this was to be a place of free and open speech and that even unpopular ideas should be voiced. The unpopular or flatly stupid ideas would be duly deconstructed and free speech would reveal a higher truth. His name was Billy Joe Mills. Read more…
Troop Increases In Afghanistan
In my previous post on Afghanistan I argued in support of lowering our expectations there and focusing our strategy on eliminating the safe haven for Al Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, rather than turning Afghanistan into a prosperous democracy. I also suggested – and there seems to be a general consensus on this point – that the support of the Afghan people is central to winning this war.
It’s been widely reported that President Obama has ordered the sending 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. I support that decision, as long as it is made in the context of the strategy I just indicated (we’ll find out if that’s the case when we find out the results of the 60-day Af-Pak strategy review). It’s not at first glance clear how more troops are consistent with such a strategy – it might seem that more troops are necessary only if we’re pursuing a more ambitious strategy, and that a greater, more intrusive American presence is more likely to inflame Afghan popular opinion. That’s definitely the risk that comes with more troops, but this UN report is enough to persuade me that more troops is better than what we’re doing now.
The level of civilian deaths last year was at its highest since the war began. A small majority – 55% – of those deaths were caused by the Taliban, which is good news in the sense that it’s better than if we were causing the most civilian deaths there. But the trouble is that of the civilian deaths caused by us, 65% are a result of airstrikes. Airstrikes are an important tool, but if they’re going to result in large numbers of civilian deaths, they need to be avoided if possible. An increased ground presence will, presumably, at least partially alleviate the need for airstrikes. Our presence will be more pervasive, but the tradeoff is (hopefully) fewer civilian deaths, which is hugely beneficial to our goals there. It also, of course, puts American troops at greater risk, which is why if we’re going to fight this war at all, we need to have clear and realistic objectives so we’re not sending these troops into a quagmire. It’s not yet clear if that’s the case, but hopefully Obama or Gates gives us some indication sometime soon.