Ruminations, February 28, 2010

Is Eric Holder right?

Attorney General Eric Holder has taken some hits lately from both the left and the right for his proposals on handling of terrorist trials – and the hits are not without merit. He has upset many by his decision to put 9/11 plot planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) on trial in New York City in a civilian trial in public court rather than in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.

In one sense, the selection of New York City struck a defiant tone toward al Qaeda: Holding the trial within blocks of the site of the 9/11 tragedy was an in-your-face kind of attitude that Americans like. On the other hand, there is the enormous cost – estimated at more than $250 million – and the location of New York would make it and the millions of people who work and live in the area, a more tempting target for al Qaeda. 

And then there’s Holder’s decision to try KSM in a civilian court. The downside of a civilian trial is that:

• KSM could be found not guilty.
• It could provide KSM with a forum for spreading his doctrine.
• The prosecutors (the government) could be forced to reveal secrets that could aid our enemy.

Holder’s arguments to the contrary have been unconvincing.  “Failure is not an option,” said Holder. Actually it is a possible outcome however unlikely.

But maybe Holder has another reason to avoid a military tribunal and make the trial of KSM as open and balanced and public as possible. Maybe there is another group of Americans with which Holder wants to curry favor: American Muslims.

There have been no precise censuses done on Muslim Americans and estimates range from 1.3 million (American Religious Identification Survey) to 7 million (Council on American-Islamic Relations also known as CAIR). A reasonable estimate might be to split the difference and say that there are about 4 million Muslim Americans.

It is also reasonable to say that the great majority of these Muslim Americans are loyal Americans. Yes, we have discovered that there are some who have decided that they owe greater allegiance to al Qaeda than to the United States and have plotted against us and there are some, no doubt, who are plotting against the United States at this moment and have yet to be discovered. But, out of a population of 4 million, the number of plotters is relatively small.

It is also reasonable to assume that Muslim Americans feel that they are under a cloud of suspicion in their own country. They are. All America’s enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan are Muslims, though not all Muslims are America’s enemies. It would be reasonable to assume that the CIA and the FBI are keeping closer tabs on Muslims than on Christians, Jews and atheists. And, if you and your co-religionists are under a cloud of suspicion, isn’t it natural to draw closer together and feel that you are a world apart from the majority? Do we want any group – especially Muslim Americans at this time – to feel that they are separate from the rest of America and that the rest of America looks at them as something less than loyal Americans?

History is rife with examples of political decisions making religion an element of rebellion. Protestant Britain made Catholicism in Ireland an element in the underground movement against the ruling class. The atheistic Soviet Union made Catholicism in Poland an element in the underground movement against the ruling class. Jewish Israel made Islam in Israel an element in the underground movement against the ruling class. It may not have been the intent to do that but a lesson that should be learned is that politics can drive religion and, in turn, religion can drive politics.

Recognizing that a massive underground religious movement in the United States can drive the country in a direction that none of us wants to take, perhaps Holder is making a statement to Muslim Americans as well as the rest of the world. And that statement is: Americans will treat Muslims – or any other group, for that matter – with the utmost civility, fairness and openness in our jurisprudence system; no one, who lives within the law, has anything to fear. And maybe, that statement has more credibility when trials like KSM’s are carried out under a civilian judiciary than under a military tribunal.

Maybe Holder’s decision is a good one. Maybe he’s right on this one.

Is there a difference between libertarians and conservatives?

Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) met in Washington last month and held annual its straw poll for President. The winner was a libertarian, Representative Ron Paul (R, TX). If you are troubled by the selection of Paul, don’t be. Past winners of the CPAC straw poll have been Mitt Romney (three times), George Allen, Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes and Phil Gramm – none of whom were even nominated for president. Only George W. Bush, the winner of the 2000 straw poll went on to win. That’s a significance ratio of one in eight and Paul will make it one in nine.

But the Paul victory does mean something. It could mean an electoral tilt away from the Democratic Party. Now that statement includes a lengthy explanation and some definitions. So here goes.

Registered attendance at CPAC was up 36 percent in 2010 to a record high of 2,395. That number (and the result of the straw poll) evidently includes a larger number of libertarians. That would indicate that libertarians are moving away from Democrats and toward Republicans. Libertarians, contrary to what you may hear, are not conservatives.

The best way to look at political alignments is to divide issues broadly into two categories: social and economic. And then we divide political inclinations into four groups: liberal, conservative, libertarian and populist. Liberals and conservatives disagree on everything as do libertarians and populists.

Liberals are pretty much laissez-faire on social issues. Liberals believe that people should be left to their own devices and would like to see fewer laws restricting social activities. They are more likely to favor legalized abortion, decriminalizing marijuana, permitting homosexuals to serve in the military, and making all aspects of government open.

On economic issues, liberals believe that people and corporations, left to their own devices, often do the wrong thing economically and liberals would like to see more restrictive laws on the economy; liberals want more controls. They are more likely to favor salary caps, price controls and more commissions controlling various aspects of business.

Conservatives are the opposite. Conservatives believe that people, left to their own devices, often do the wrong thing. Conservatives would, therefore, like to see more social laws. They are more likely to want to prohibit abortion, keep marijuana criminalized, restrict military service to heterosexuals and allow some parts of the government to operate in secret.

On economic issues, conservatives are closer to laissez-faire and believe that people and corporations, left to their own devices, make better economic decisions. Conservatives would, therefore, like to see fewer laws on the economy. They are more likely to oppose salary caps, price controls and more commissions controlling various aspects of business.

This brings us to libertarians. Libertarians are laissez-faire on everything. They are more likely to side with liberals on social issues and with conservatives on economic issues.

And last, but not least, that brings us to populists. Populists tend to agree with liberals on economic issues and with conservatives on social issues. They don’t trust anyone to get it right without oversight.

So, having said all that, what does that say about Ron Paul’s win in the straw poll and about the increased attendance of libertarians at CPAC? It seems to imply that libertarians are placing more emphasis on economic issues this time around. They are moving toward conservatives because they feel threatened by liberal policies of the Democrats and that, to them at this time, seems more important than social issues.

It’s also interesting that many pundits have cited President Obama’s move toward courting populists. It makes sense.

This time around, it is the economy – and in spades.

The politics of global warming

Politics are different from science. In politics, you try to convince people to adopt your point of view and often facts are spun to make them appear more favorable to your point of view; the end result of politics is to win a majority and be able to govern. Science works on the principle of providing raw data, documented processes and to answering skeptics in good faith; often theories held by the minority can eventually become the established science.

Whether or not anthropocentric global warming is a fact, one must admit that, to date, the science of global warming has taken a backseat to the politics of global warming.

It was clear from the start that the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was engaged in politics. The Working Group Summary for Policymakers was published in February 2007. At that time, it was announced that the full detailed report would be available a month later, as soon as the detail was ensured to be in conformance with the summary. Wait a minute. Isn’t that backward? Shouldn’t the summary come after the detail and shouldn’t the summary be in conformance with the detail?

The next indication that politics was trumping science was when the supporters of the global warming theory stated that global warming was settled science and anyone who disagreed was a “denier” (as in Holocaust Denier). Name calling is typically reserved for politics.

And just who are the faces of global warming? The co-winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri. Gore is lifelong politician and nowhere near a scientist. Pachauri is the Chief of the IPCC and, by training, is an industrial engineer and economist. By vocation, for the last 35 years Pachauri has been an economics professor and has served in the leadership position of several organizations. He’s not a scientist either.

If that weren’t indicative of the political tack of the IPCC, the IPCC then began touting that some 2,500 scientists had signed-on to their document, making anthropocentric global warming the winner by majority rule. But science is decided by rigorous application of facts – it’s politics that’s decided by majority rule. A phrase that has come to describe just this situation of politics dominating science is the “Semmelweis Reflex”: the rejection of knowledge that conflicts with accepted science norms. (Ignaz Semmelweis, for whom the Semmelweis Reflex was named, was a 19^th century Vienna physician who suggested that hospital mortality rates could be lowered if physicians washed their hands before examining patients; however, Semmelweis’s suggestion was a contradiction of the settled science norms; doctors could clean their hands by wiping them on their smocks.)

Even skeptics got into the political game when Dr. Arthur Robinson, Director of the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine, initiated a petition that was eventually signed by 32,000 scientists stating, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human … [activities are] causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.” (For the full document, go here

http://www.petitionproject.org/.)

But when emails were hacked from Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that appeared to disclose deception and political skullduggery, and when the world learned of errors regarding the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers and on sea level data, among other statements – all instrumental in the IPCC study — the IPCC realized it was time for a “do-over.” The landmark document on climate would have to be completely revised. This was to be announced in early December but the announcement was delayed for fear of the political impact that such a statement would have on the reputations of the representatives at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in mid-December.

In the meantime, the nomenclature is changing to make global warming more palatable. At first, the term “global warming” was used to reflect a concern that temperatures were rising world-wide. When that proved not to be the case (indeed, Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and a key figure in the Climategate scandal, stated in an interview with the BBC earlier this month: “there has been no significant warming since 1995”) the proponents of global warming changed the name of the phenomenon to “climate change.” And now, Tom Friedman, a political columnist for The New York Times, has suggested that the term “global weirding” be used to account for all variations in temperatures and weather.

The IPCC and their apostles have done the world a disservice. By politicizing their message in such a ham-handed fashion, they have thrown anthropocentric climate change into disrepute. To rebuild their trust, if possible, they will have to begin by admitting that the science is not settled. If they cannot make that statement – and as members of an organizations that has promoted itself on the “settled science” platform, it is a big step – they will never earn that trust again.

Quote without comment

BBC reporters last month posed the question: “When scientists say ‘the debate on climate change is over,’ what exactly do they mean?” Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, responded to the question: “I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view.”