Monthly Archives: April 2014

US “Policy” in Asia

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Is there one? It would seem not. Everywhere President Barack Obama went on his recently concluded Reset trip through Asia, his lack of any sort of policy vis-à-vis Asia was made plain by concerns expressed about his failure to perform regarding Ukraine.

On each stop in Asia, including South Korea and Malaysia, Mr Obama’s trip was accompanied by concerns over aggression by Moscow and its militant allies in defiance of warnings by the US and other Western powers.

Because yes, Virginia, there really are linkages.

Under threat from Russia, Kiev earlier this year appealed to Washington for small arms and ammunition, as well as for nonlethal items like flak jackets and night-vision goggles. Wary of antagonizing Moscow, the White House dragged out internal deliberations for weeks before deciding earlier this month to send helmets, sleeping mats and other nonlethal gear deemed by US officials to be less provocative—but no arms.

The PRC isn’t oblivious to this, as any thinking adult knows. Nor is it lost on them that this administration is more at pains to avoid angrifying the perpetrator than it is in defending or otherwise meaningfully supporting the perp’s victim.

US officials say Asian allies who want to know how Washington would respond to future acts of Chinese aggression shouldn’t look at what the US is doing to aid Ukraine but instead at Pentagon moves to reassure Eastern European allies and Baltic states since the US is bound by treaty agreements to help defend them.

Yet what our Asian allies, as well as potential allies, see is the US reneging on exactly those treaty agreements—see the Belgrade Memorandum, for instance, coupled with the continued occupation of a Ukrainian oblast by the Russians. See, also, the earlier withdrawal from a missile defense shield agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic—on Russia’s demand.

The steps can be taken without risking a shooting war, officials say, citing intelligence that suggests there are divisions within the Chinese military establishment about how to respond. … “Never push your enemy into a corner because you might get a reaction you don’t want.”

But sometimes the risk of “a shooting war” needs to be imposed on the other side—no situation is only about us. This also is a misreading of Sun-Tzu, who didn’t say never. After all, it’s the threat of shooting him that’s necessary to encourage him to take the way off the field, especially if his preference is to come through you. And sometimes, after all is said and done, you do have to fight.

The incoherence, as well as the timidity, of Obama’s moves regarding Asia (and Europe) would be palpable were there enough of a policy to be timid or incoherent.

More Sanctions…Sort Of…And Moral Equivalence

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In President Barack Obama’s latest round of pretend sanctions, he’s targeting 17 companies supposedly linked to Russia’s Tsar President Vladimir Putin along with 7 more oligarchs. But don’t take it personally, Vlad, Obama assures all concerned, this isn’t intended to, like, hurt. It’s just that flexibility I talked about a couple years ago.

The goal here is not to go after Mr Putin personally[.]

The Wall Street Journal took note of Obama’s cynical moral equivalence shortly after his assurance.

In [Obama’s] view Mr Putin is reacting understandably to Russia’s post-Soviet decline in power and the West’s NATO expansion. Ukraine and the rest of the Russian near abroad are part of the Kremlin’s historic sphere of influence, so let Mr Putin have them and after a slap on the wrist we can all return to business as usual.

Two more years is a long time….

“Not Private, Not Protected”

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A brief comment, just for clarification; although the point being clarified isn’t trivial.

Colorado has a bill wending its way through the state legislature that would tighten restrictions on government access to an individual’s private information. The bill would refer

a question to voters in November asking whether law enforcement should get warrants to search electronic data, such as phone and email records, or personal data stored in a cloud. If approved by lawmakers and voters, the requirement would be added to the state constitution.

Senate President Morgan Carroll (D), who supports the bill/amendment had this to say about the matter:

I think a lot of people weren’t necessarily aware of how much their information may actually be not private, not protected.

No. Carroll’s heart is in the right place, but he misunderstands the crucial thing. Private and protected are not the same thing. It’s often (usually) necessary to protect private things, like our electronic data, but a lack of protection in no way eliminates the essential privacy of the thing. To give up privacy, a separate act is necessary: the thing must explicitly and affirmatively be placed into a public venue.

Even the act of explicitly and affirmatively placing the thing into the hands of a third party does not cancel the essential privacy of the thing: we expect that third party to take sufficient measures to protect, not just the thing itself, but its privacy also.

The New Racism

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Shanta Driver, who argued Schuette v BAMN before the Supreme Court and lost, 6-2, is protesting her loss:

This is a racist decision that takes us back to an era of state’s rights. This decision cannot stand.

Yeah. The 10th Amendment can’t be allowed to stand. It must be struck, and never mind that Article V bit; that’s just in the way.

Oh, and never mind that the outcome of the Supremes’ ruling was to uphold a decision by the citizens of Michigan to codify in their constitution the concept that race (or gender, ethnicity, or national origin) cannot be used as a criterion for selection for admission to college.

Because to be color-blind, to not use race as a mechanism for preferential treatment, is racist. The new racism.

Bigotry in the Supreme Court

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…not of the Supreme Court. I writing now about the Court’s ruling in the Michigan affirmative action case (Schuette v BAMN) concerning the state’s “decision to end affirmative action at its public universities.”

The Court ruled 6-2 to uphold Michigan’s decision, holding essentially, that such a choice should be left to the States’ citizenry and not determined by the court system.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court (mostly—there were a number of separate concurring opinions), expanded on that:

The electorate’s instruction to governmental entities not to embark upon the course of race-defined and race-based preferences was adopted, we must assume, because the voters deemed a preference system to be unwise on account of what voters may deem its latent potential to become itself a source of the very resentments and hostilities based on race that this nation seeks to put behind it.

Justice Elena Kagan recused, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg joined the dissent.

Sadly, Sotomayor’s dissent was fundamentally racist.[1] She insisted that “race matters.” And

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.

Indeed. But the Constitution, which must be applied “with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination,” must be applied as it is written—especially because, in the present context, the Constitution is color—and gender, come to that—blind, and explicitly so under the 14th Amendment. That means that there cannot be anything other than equal treatment under law; in particular, there cannot be special treatment for some groups, and there cannot be special treatment for some groups at the expense of other groups.

Applying special treatment, as Sotomayor demands because of those centuries of racial discrimination, is only to maintain that racial discrimination for centuries more.

She attempted to offer alternatives to citizens speaking their voice:

In the wake of Grutter, some voters in Michigan set out to eliminate the use of race-sensitive admissions policies. Those voters were of course free to pursue this end in any number of ways. For example, they could have persuaded existing board members to change their minds through individual or grassroots lobbying efforts, or through gen­eral public awareness campaigns. Or they could have mobilized efforts to vote uncooperative board members out of office, replacing them with members who would share their desire to abolish race-sensitive admissions policies.

This, of course, is just what the voters of Michigan did—only they did it state-wide, rather than piecemeal. There is no difference between the two, except in the mind of Sotomayor.

She buried this in a footnote:

Although the term “affirmative action” is commonly used to describe colleges’ and universities’ use of race in crafting admissions policies, I instead use the term “race-sensitive admissions policies.”

Which is nothing but the racism of preferential treatment based on race. Made blatant by her preferred term of reference.

Sotomayor concluded her dissent with this:

For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government.

Because, of course, we cannot demarginalize those groups by treating them like adults and equals, we can only demarginalize them by perpetuating their status as…dependents…through continuing to single them out for special treatment.

I respectfully dissent from Sotomayor’s dissent.

 

[1] I of course do not mean to suggest that Justice Sotomayor wrote with anything like invidious intent. But the dissent at issue in this case seeks to change the rules of the political process and of the 14th Amendment to the disadvantage of members of our society disfavored by government.

Update: Added Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s first name to the first time she’s mentioned in the post.  It’s my usual habit; I missed it this time.