Tag Archives: ethics

Religious Freedom, Government, and Moral Equivalence

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The Daily Caller reports on a series of meetings between our government and representatives from several Islamic governments that have pressed us for years to terminate our ability to speak freely about Islam’s history and obligations.  We might think it’s entirely appropriate that we should engage those governments on the matter of religious and speech freedoms, the United States Constitution, and what must occur within our borders regarding our acknowledged inalienable rights.

Among other things under serious discussion, though, is those nations’ support for a UN resolution—which our government seems not to be opposing—titled “Combating Intolerance, Negative Stereotyping and Stigmatization of, and Discrimination, Incitement to Violence and Violence Against, Persons Based on Religion or Belief.”  While claiming to urge tolerance of all believers, though, it also urges all governments to counter “Islamophobia,” and declare opposition to “derogatory stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of persons based on their religion or belief” (nor does it urge governments to counter “Christianophobia,” or “Judeophobia,” or Buddhisophobia,” or “atheistophobia,” or…).  Notice that: this isn’t a call for government-funded outreach programs (however ill-conceived government funding of such programs might be in the first place) with which private citizens might voluntarily engage, or not; this is simply a disguised effort to have government authorities dictate what is permitted speech.  The resolution, for instance, calls on government to define “derogatory” and “negative profiling” and “stigmatizing.”  Individual Americans (or Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or etc.) are not to be trusted to arrive at their own definitions and usages.

Hannah Rosenthal, head of the State Department’s Office To Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism(!?), reassures us, though.  This resolution carries no threat to our freedom of speech because, “[The government] would protect free speech.”  But then she says that hateful and Islamophobic speech needs to be called out, and when invited to define “hateful,” she insisted with a straight face that if critics of Islam’s ideology

are just taking out the hateful parts [of the Quran] or claiming [they’re] all superior to them…that can be very damaging.

On the other side of the religion coin is this,  concerning atheism.  Fox News‘ online facility carries this story about atheist messages having displaced most of the Christmas Nativity scenes that local churches had placed in a Santa Monica, CA, park for the last 60 years.  Some background: there are 21 spaces for such messages allotted in the park, and until this year, the churches had faced little competition for them, so they usually were able to put Nativity scenes into 14 of them (they never tried for more…).  This year, due to a much larger demand for the limited number of spaces, the city decided to allot them via lottery, with no single individual eligible to “win” more than 9.  Eighteen of the spaces were “won” by two atheists.  Leaving aside the legitimacy of such a lottery (that outcome is statistically possible), what else is going on here?

Damon Vix, reputedly behind this effort, says

For 60 years, it’s almost exclusively been the point of view of Christians putting up nativity scenes for a whole city block….

This year, by design, it will be even more “exclusively the point of view of atheists” that will be represented.

Hmm….

We cannot accept moral equivalency.  There is no such thing.  Some morals, some cultures, are superior to others.  Was it acceptable, for instance, that the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice, just because that was a religious imperative for them?  Was it acceptable for NAZIs to butcher Jews, just because that was the internal affair of a sovereign nation?  Is it acceptable to mutilate women with female circumcision because a religious tenet demands it?  Is it acceptable to murder women for going against a man’s demands just because a religious tenet demands it?  Is it acceptable to send agents into another sovereign nation to murder a person who speaks against Mohammed or posts an image of him?

Religious freedom has nothing at all to do with individual criticism of religion generally or of another’s religion in particular.  It has nothing at all to do with the free competition of ideas or the free competition among differing religions, differing moral systems.  It has everything to do with proscribing a government role in the competition.

In the end, who is it that’s afraid of such competition?  Only those harboring a nagging fear that their own tenets won’t measure up, and so they demand special protections from that competition.  Let, for instance, an atheist’s message sit next to a religious message in the public square; let both of them especially into the public square.  The differences will be clear.  As will be the winners of such a competition.

It’s such a simple law.  It can’t be that hard to enforce.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[.]

Thoughts on Free Speech

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Here is some action on the free speech front, particularly involving the Internet and piracy and government efforts to impose control on both.

These offerings from our government are pertinent: the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House of Representatives’ parallel effort, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  Unfortunately, they’re not tightly written to address actual piracy, or theft of copyrighted material.  With their too-broad reach, each of these bills can also achieve the following (whether this potential use is deliberate or simply the result of routine political pandering and/or incompetence, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader).

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe suggests this:

SOPA provides that a complaining party can file a notice alleging that it is harmed by the activities occurring on the site “or portion thereof.”  Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement. Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials.

And

The notice-and-termination procedure…runs afoul of the “prior restraint” doctrine, because it delegates to a private party the power to suppress speech without prior notice and a judicial hearing. This provision of the bill would give complaining parties the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website, merely by filing a unilateral notice accusing the site of being “dedicated to theft of U.S. property” — even if no court has actually found any infringement.

Wow.  Guilt by accusation; we’ll sort out the damages from false or erroneous accusations later.  In the meantime, we’ll shut down the whole site, and RICO-like, cutoff the financial resources of the accused.  Solely on the accuser’s say-so; he don’t need no stinkin’ courts.

By closing an entire facility over an (alleged) infraction by one individual or involving just a few documents, an entire avenue of speech is shut down: not just the speech of the Web site’s operators, but the speech choices of those who wish to hear (read) what contributors to such a Web site has to say, on any subject.  Imagine a closely contested election in which a Web site favors one candidate over another.  One of those “other materials” is claimed by the other candidate to be harming his campaign.  Where might the greater harm be occurring?

Oh, but I’m overreacting.  Ex-Senator Chris Dodd (D, CT) has the answer.  The bills are only asking for the same power the People’s Republic of China has for Internet censorship:

When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn’t do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites.

Hmm….

We don’t need any more free speech laws, or government intervention into free speech.  We have too much of this, already.  Besides, we already have a fine free speech law, one that doesn’t run to 2,000 or more pages worth of…speech:

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press[.]

And it took our Founders only 14 words, and rather less than a single page, to write it.

Update: Added some final thoughts.

Democracy

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Paul Krugman wrote this in his The New York Times column yesterday:

Fidesz won an overwhelming Parliamentary majority last year, at least partly for economic reasons; Hungary isn’t on the euro, but it suffered severely because of large-scale borrowing in foreign currencies and also, to be frank, thanks to mismanagement and corruption on the part of the then-governing left-liberal parties. Now Fidesz, which rammed through a new Constitution last spring on a party-line vote, seems bent on establishing a permanent hold on power.

Krugman is talking about the current sovereign debt crisis in the European Union and its effect on Hungary, but there’s a ring to it.  Let’s see if it can be domesticized….

[The Democratic Party] won an overwhelming [Congressional] majority [in 2008], at least partly for economic reasons; [the US] isn’t on the euro, but it suffered severely because of large-scale borrowing…and also, to be frank, thanks to mismanagement and corruption on the part of the then-governing…parties. Now [the Democrats], which rammed through [Stimulus Bill of 2009, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank] on…party-line vote[s], seem bent on establishing a permanent hold on power.

Sound familiar?

Deterrence

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Deterrence is one means of influencing another nation’s behavior.  It is, by its nature a passive activity, relying as it does on persuading another nation not to do something by threatening a response so powerful that any gain from the undesired behavior is overwhelmed by the loss from the threatened response.  One nation might deter another from initiating a nuclear attack, for instance, by threatening a nuclear response of devastating effect.

But deterrence, to be successful, relies on a number of factors, only some of which are under the control of the deterring nation.  One of those factors is actually having the ability to deliver the threatened response and the ability to defeat the other nation’s initiating action.  This is generally within the control of the deterring nation.  Either the United States, for instance, has the ability to deliver a devastating response and to defeat sufficiently the initial action, or we do not, and within limits, only we make the determination acquire/maintain those abilities.  Another factor in deterrence is the will to use that strength, should the nation we’re trying to deter act anyway.  This is a shared factor, though, depending not just on our actual will, but on the other nation’s perception of our will.  We can manage that perception only by acting meaningfully and decisively with lesser consequences in response to lesser actions.  If we do not deliver those lesser consequences, the nation we wish to deter will have no reason to believe we’ll respond with our described deterrence actions.  A third factor on which deterrence depends is the clarity of our position.  The consequences of the other nation’s action must be well understood by that nation.  This also is a shared factor: communication is a two-way street, and we must ensure that the other nation does get the message.  A fourth factor in deterrence is the other nation’s tolerance for the damage we’ll inflict should they strike and we respond as our deterrence position says we will.  The moment the other nation decides the cost is worth the gain, our deterrence ceases to exist, and we must adjust our deterrence—and defensive—posture.  And we must recognize the other nation’s tolerance for pain in order to make the adjustments.  This factor, other than our understanding, is entirely under the control of that other nation.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s look at our ability to deter today.

We say we do not want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, going so far as insisting that such a thing is unacceptable.  How have we gone about pursuing that goal?  This administration began by extending an open hand to Iran, if only they would unclench their fist: we would negotiate with them, offer them incentives, including help with enriching uranium to the level that an Iranian nuclear power plant needs in order to function effectively.  In truth, the negotiation attempts did not originate with the Obama administration; prior administrations had been pursuing this path all along.  When it became clear that the open hand, the negotiations, were failing, then this administration began a parallel course of threatening ever stronger sanctions, and repeated attempts to apply them.

Indeed, President Obama insists that “this administration has systemically imposed the toughest sanctions on…Iran ever.  When we came into office, the world was divided.  Iran was unified and moving aggressively on its own agenda. Today, Iran is isolated and the world is unified in applying the toughest sanctions that Iran has ever experienced and it’s having an impact inside Iran.”

The Iranian response, though, has been continued effort, and progress, toward nuclear weapons acquisition.  The “toughest sanctions” were ineffective, and part of their ineffectiveness was the active interference with global sanctions by Russia and the People’s Republic of China.  Indeed, Iran has taken to openly attacking diplomatic missions in Teheran, and they’re dispersing their medium range missile systems, making them harder to target should Iran take overt military action.

Our deterrence effort vis-à-vis Iran has failed on a number of fronts.  We did not demonstrate any particular will to apply serious consequences at any stage of our interactions with Iran.  We have not demonstrated even the capability to apply serious consequences.  Even our message is muddled: we’ve never really spelled out the consequences of their continued efforts or of their actually getting nuclear weapons: we’ve only made fatuous remarks about sanctions and vague threats of “no option is off the table.”  Finally, Iran has determined that it’s willing to bear the costs we might inflict.

With Russia, it’s a slightly different story.  The question here is who is actually deterring whom.  The Russians object to our having a missile shield to protect against Iranian missiles (against northern Korea’s missiles, too, but Russia’s public objections have centered on a defensive deployment in Europe).  Shortly after President Obama took office, Russian objections became quite vociferous as we concluded agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to install components of the shield in each nation.  The Russians said that if we persisted, they would move nuclear weapons into western Russia from where they could strike Europe.  They also made direct threats to destroy Poland with nuclear strikes.  We canceled those agreements and agreed not to deploy a missile shield there.  (As an aside, keep in mind that this missile shield would have been part of that larger deterrence against Iranian use of their nuclear weapons—an ability to defeat a strike by them.

Now The Weekly Standard reports that

The Obama administration is…undertak[ing] what amounts to an off-schedule Nuclear Posture Review—one that ices out Defense and State Department experts usually consulted on nuclear issues.  It is also beginning a new round of talks with Moscow here in Washington next week that many observers believe will result in the United States offering to trade U.S. strategic weapons in exchange for reductions in Russian tactical weapons.

Further,

[T]he Obama administration is looking to make unilateral cuts….  Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has suggested that to save money the administration might have to eliminate America’s land-based 450 single-warhead Minuteman III ICBMs (though ICBM sustainment is but a rounding error in the DoD budget)….”

It may be that Panetta’s threats are mere polemics in an attempt to protect the Defense budget from the cuts mandated by the Super Committee’s failure.  However, against the backdrop of Russia’s just concluded success at deterring us from deploying a defensive system—the flip side of which is our appeasement of them (which itself comes against the backdrop of our acquiescence in the Russian partition of an American ally, Georgia), it’s reasonable to ask whether we’re being further deterred, this time from having sufficient offensive weapons with which to respond to an attack against which we no longer can defend ourselves.  Understand: whether we’re conning the Russians (or conning ourselves) into accepting the decommissioning of supposedly obsolete ICBMs in return for their decommissioning of (obsolete) tactical missile systems or we’re being deterred from maintaining an offensive leg of our triad makes no difference.  We’ll lose a major fraction of our offensive capability.  Further, the tactical systems will be faster and cheaper to replace in the event of a breakout and arms race than will be the strategic systems.  And they will be more immediately decisive in a fight, especially one in which we have no defenses.

With no missile defense capability and with such reductions in our offensive capability, where is our ability to satisfy either the first factor in deterrence: the capability to respond?  And with the reduced capability to respond at all, the pain threshold is much harder to cross, also, giving Russia much less pause as they consider an offensive move.  Russia seems to be moving our behavior in directions satisfactory to it, however.

It’s different yet with the PRC, but not optimistically so.  We have a legal obligation to keep the Republic of China well enough armed with modern weapons that they can defeat an attack by the PRC.  Yet when we began the latest round of talks with Taiwan, the PRC objected so vociferously that we walked away from an initial sale of 66 modern F-16s, and agreed only to sell our ally a couple dozen of outmoded F-16s.

Further, the PRC is increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea, threatening American allies (vis., the Philippines) and potential allies (vis., Vietnam) and seizing key islands—including those that belong to the Philippines and Vietnam—and claiming them for itself.  The American response to this has been…silence.

Finally, DoD is on record as saying that the PRC is developing their own road-mobile ICBM (a capability which the Soviet Union had developed in the early days of mobile ICBMs), and they’ve dug a 3,000 mile tunnel system in which to hide their ICBM force.  They’ve also dismissed out of hand an offer of a joint weapons verification facility proposed by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Here, it’s clear that the PRC does not consider that we have the will to act, and so any ability to act does not concern them.  Nor have we said anything at all about consequences for their continued aggressiveness.  Finally, as they demonstrated with their human wave attacks in the Korean War, they’re perfectly willing, literally, simply to throw bodies into a fight until we run out of ammunition.  The degree of damage they’re willing to absorb is quite high.

So here we are with our deterrent capability.  Iran is about to acquire nuclear bombs, and it already has the missile systems with which to deliver them.

Russia has convinced us not to deploy a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.  Russia threatens our allies and any new, potential defensive systems we might deploy with nuclear attack, and it does so with impunity.  Indeed, the imbalance has reached the point where we can’t even determine for ourselves whether we will acquire/maintain the strength necessary for us to deter Russia.  We’re negotiating our arms levels with them.

The PRC threatens our allies and potential allies over sea resources and key islands in South China Sea and over our erstwhile willingness to provide the Republic of China the resources with which to resist a PRC invasion.

Given all of this, what happens when Iran gets its nuclear weapons?  Which of us will be deterred then?  From what else will we be deterred by Russia and the PRC?  What will we deter these three from doing?

Finally, a closely related aside on the question of appeasement: President Obama insists “Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaida leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement.  Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that.”

Let’s also ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Kim Jong-il, how American strength and steadfastness is working out.  Oh, and congratulations to President Obama on his success in carrying out President Bush the Younger’s drone and bin Laden policies.

Apologies

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The US ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, made some truly appalling remarks the other day, but what followed is even more so.  Gutman’s remarks were these:

There is and has long been some amount of anti-Semitism, of hatred and violence against Jews, from a small sector of the population who hate others who may be different or perceived to be different, largely for the sake of hating. Those anti-Semites are people who hate not only Jews, but Muslims, gays, gypsies, and likely any who can be described as minorities or different.

It is the area where every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.

Peace in the Middle East would indeed equate with a huge reduction of this form of labeled “anti-Semitism” here in Europe.

It seems, then, that at least some anti-Semitism results from tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.  Israel is condemned as a participant in the bigotry for the crime of insisting on defending itself.  Anti-Semitism, more generally, is trivialized by the attitude that “there always are haters.”  Gutman’s remarks, though, reverse the situation: the bigotry, which predates the existence of modern Israel and Palestine by some centuries, is the cause of the conflict, not the result.  The remarks demand a clear, unequivocal apology.

The official responses to this were worse.

To digress, for a moment, an apology consists of three things, as any child knows: first, a prompt acknowledgment by the one owing the apology of the wrong done; second, an expression of regret for that wrong and for the harm caused by that wrong; and third, the first two must be sincere.  Measures of sincerity include whether the apology occurs without prompting of any sort, the promptness of the apology, and the clarity of the expressions.

In response to the hue and cry over his remarks, Gutman had this to say:

I strongly condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms and deeply regret that my words were misinterpreted.

My personal history and the history of my family testify to the importance I attach to this subject and my unwavering commitment to fight anti-Semitism.

He regrets his audience misunderstood him, but he’s not the least sorry for what he said.  And we’re supposed to give extra credit because of his family history.

Then President Obama spoke up through his spokesman, Jay Carney:

Q    I’m wondering if you could explain what the U.S. ambassador to Belgium meant in his comments about anti-Semitism, tying them to Israel’s policy.

MR. CARNEY:  The fact is, as you know, we condemn—this administration and the United States condemns anti-Semitism in all its forms, and believe that there is never any justification for prejudice against the Jewish people or against Israel.  Ambassador Gutman has expressed his regret, noting that he, quote, “strongly condemns anti-Semitism in all its forms.”

And I would just point out, Jake, that this administration has consistently stood up against anti-Semitism and efforts to de-legitimize Israel, and we will continue to do so.  Our record on this speaks for itself.  Whether it was opposing one-sided efforts to single out Israel at the Human Rights Council, speaking out against incitement in the Arab world, or opposing efforts to shortcut negotiations at the United Nations.

Specifically to your question, I think the ambassador himself has addressed this, so I would direct you to his statements, in terms of interpreting what he meant.  But our position is quite clear.  And our record is even clearer.

Not a word of condemnation of, or even remonstration against, Gutman’s remarks, nor an apology from Obama for his ambassador’s words.  Just an injunction to go see what he said.

The State Department couldn’t even figure out what the problem was, as this confused exchange demonstrates:

Q: I’ll start with Ambassador Gutman’s speech from last week.  Does the—did the administration sign off on this, or was it vetted by anyone in EUR or NEA? And does the administration agree with the sentiments that he expressed in his speech?

MR. TONER: I think you saw—actually, let me start again. I’m not aware that his remarks were cleared back here in Washington. He made very clear in a subsequent statement that they were his thoughts or his remarks. He did condemn—he—and was very vocal about condemning anti-Semitism in all its forms, and I believe he expressed regret that his words might have been taken out of context….

Q: I don’t know—it’s a pretty easy question. Yes or no?

MR. TONER: It is a—it is—it is—it was his remarks. It was his opinion—

Q: So he wasn’t speaking on—the ambassador to Belgium, he was not speaking—

MR. TONER: He was not speaking on behalf—I think he’s said as much. He said it was his remarks and he was speaking on his own—

Q: No, he didn’t. He did not say that. He—but he was not speaking on behalf of the U.S. government?

MR. TONER: I don’t believe so.

Q: So the—OK, the ambassador to Belgium shows up at a conference in Europe, in Belgium, and he is not speaking on behalf of the U.S. government. Is that correct?

MR. TONER: The ambassador was expressing his views on an issue.

Q: They’re not the view—so these—

MR. TONER: He subsequently—he subsequently issued a statement clarifying that he was—and expressing regret if his remarks were taken out of context. He then said that he does condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms and in fact pointed to his own family history as a—as a testament to that.

Q: So are you—well, I understand that. But you’re saying that he was speaking as a private citizen, not as the U.S. ambassador?

MR. TONER: Well, of course, when—any time an ambassador speaks, he is representing the United States….

Q: Can I just follow up briefly on that? Some Republicans have called for the administration to fire Ambassador Gutman. Is there—does the administration have a response to that, have a position on—

MR. TONER: We have full confidence in him.

“Could you repeat the question?”

No hint of an apology in any of the statements or exchanges.  There were only “clarifications” and deflections from Gutman, avoidance and deflection from Obama, and an inability even to understand the problem from State.  And it was all done in response to the uproar, and not at all out of any recognition of, and acceptance of responsibility for, wrong-doing.

Even worse, this failure is not unique to any particular party; it seems to be the modern vogue.