Politics

“Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.” “For nearly three years, Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. It was only after appeals by the secretary-general and Arab states and pressure by the United States and other member states that Iraq declared on 16 September last year that it would again accept inspections without conditions.” ...

Some commenters below were pretty skeptical about the viability of non-state sponsored terrorism. (By the way, I appreciate the time all of you took to post, especially the ones I disagree with. Thank you.) Strikes me as a good time, therefore, to talk a little more about the likely progression of terror technology. This is gonna tie into some of the stuff I’ve said about NGOs, by the by. ...

Says Mr. Reynolds: “This is also why I prefer a Mussolini-style ending in which Saddam is lynched by his own people to exile, or even a trial. I think that would provide a valuable lesson.” Yes, that’s what I always think about lynchings. They’ll provide a valuable lesson. Precisely. People get uppity, you know? But you know, I think Den Beste is right (original) when he says the world political order is about to change. He’s wrong about a bunch of other things; he clearly doesn’t understand the concept that international legitimacy may be important for any other reason than the immediately practical. I’ve written before about the sheer folly of assuming that the United States will always be in the privileged power position we currently enjoy, and I’ve discussed why enlightened self-interest leads us to the conclusion that we must not encourage a world in preemptively securing one’s own position by invading other countries is wise. Ah well. ...

[This article](http://web.archive.org/web/20110721182206/http://web.archive.org/web/20110721182206/http://gummibear.netfirms.com/oj/oj_marches.html (original) “OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today”) (original) is about the funniest parody I’ve read in some time, and makes it mercilessly clear why you can’t just invert protest numbers to determine the number of people who support the status quo. It’s pretty obvious, by the by, that the numbers of people protesting are important. You can tell, because people who support whatever’s being protested generally aim for the low end of the possible range. Nathan Newman makes an interesting argument against mass protests (link via Electrolite), but I don’t think the math is as simple as he does. A really sizable protest makes it psychologically easier for those who might support the cause but be uncertain of themselves to come out the next time; humans have a lot of herd animal in them. It’d be nice if it were otherwise, and perhaps someday, but right now? Perceptions of numbers matter. ...

OK, I think I figured this one out. And you thought I’d forgotten all about it… Without further ado, the Population: One two axis predictive political graph. Axis one is still freedom vs. safety. Which matters more in your personal calculus? Will you give up safety for freedom, or vice versa? Axis two is privileged position vs. one among many. Do you think that your club/state/nation/special interest group has a privileged position vis a vis the rest of the world, for whatever reason? If so, perhaps you think God granted said status; perhaps you think it’s been earned by means of a sterling diplomatic record. The question is whether or not you think it exists, not why it exists. ...

Kevin Drum challenges us to come up with a two-axis system of political temperament classification that makes sense. OK, I’ll bite. Preferatory, I’ll note that I think it’s important that the ends of the axes are non-pejorative. The Libertarian quiz fails because the questions are slanted. Any useful system can’t be biased towards one result. That’s propaganda, not political science. So: axis one is Freedom vs. Safety. What’s more important to you? There’s no “right” answer to this question, in my book. I have my own strong preferences. That’s me. Someone else might have different preferences. Note that this isn’t a question about rights; I might think that everyone has a natural right to be safe but personally prefer to give up that right for the sake of freedom. ...

Turns out the Sharpton fire was just an overloaded extension cord. My cynicism was unwarranted, too. I’m glad.

The Libertarian Party has broken new ground; they’ve successfully petitioned the FEC for the right to sell their mailing lists (original). By “sell their mailing lists,” I mean “sell them to any random bulk mailer who wants to send me more junk mail.” This allows the LP to work around some of the unfortunate side effects of the BCRA (original), which prohibits political parties from accepting money from corporations. ...

Orin Kerr nails it over at the Volokh Conspiracy, which is as good a time as any to launch into a discussion of my own anti-war feelings. This post summarizes my opinion on a lot of the arguments we’ve seen on both sides. I believe that Bush wants to invade Iraq in order to expand American presence in the region. I think he also believes, quite accurately, that Saddam is a very bad leader and that regime change in Iraq will be a net good for the world — but that’s not the primary reason, it’s a nice side effect. ...

People occasionally accuse me of being a sensible liberal, or likely to lose my liberal blogger badge (original). This is pretty warming, since I don’t really think of myself as a liberal; I think of myself as an anarchocapitalist hampered in his desire for untrammeled freedom by the practicalities of realpolitik. I.e., if I could push a button and remove all government from the world, I wouldn’t do it. I think that, unpaired with some serious education about enlightened self-interest, the results would be very bad. In the interim, I tend to lean towards the left, because I think the left is somewhat more likely to preserve the freedoms I care the most about without imposing the restrictions I find most distasteful. ...