Why Foreign Aid Should be a Conservative Priority

It has always struck me that one of the constants of rural conservative anti-Washington beliefs has been foreign aid is wasted tax payer money and should be ended.

Yet, looking at the Year in Review pictures of 2015's events I was struck by the widespread sourcing of refugees on the move: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Central African Republic, miscellaneous other African countries, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Jamaica and no doubt I am missing some other significant sources.

Of course, what made America great is the movement of people in search of a better life and American welcoming them.  As the grandchild of 3 people born in Europe, 2 who migrated here as adults, I am very welcoming of anyone so courageous as to be willing to learn a new language and start over at the bottom in a new society with the belief that life here will be superior to life in the old country.

But as Europe has found out, there is a limit to how many people even a large society can absorb, and I know conservatives types will see a smaller number than I do as what that limit should be, but it cannot be zero unless the developed world uses diplomacy and foreign aid to help these source countries preserve a hope of economic opportunity in a peaceful setting.  If you don't have that, people will migrate from chaos to a rules based society.  That, after all, is the original purpose of religion.  Religion is how leaders 5000 years ago developed rules for society.  When there are no rules, chaos reigns and people want to live in a rules based society.  It is in our basic metaphoric DNA.

So, if you are a conservative person, and you want less rather than more human migration, you should be supporting more diplomacy and more foreign aid because that is how you will reduce human migration.  I realize, foreign aid can be wasted by corruption and that is why you cannot have an open check book for foreign aid; but borders cannot control millions of people who want to migrate with humane processes that respect the human condition if there is chaos where those people originate.

So, preventing chaos everywhere in this world should be a goal of developed world diplomacy and foreign aid.  That should be a basic tenant of any set of political beliefs.

Where is Reflection in the Republican Party? Global Warming, Islamic Jihad

I am an analyst by inner sense of self, education and career.  When I look at any issue, especially economic and political issues, I like to analyze the subject from all angles to decide what I think should be done.

So yesterday, while I enjoyed a Lobster Roll and beer for a holiday lunch in Manhattan after doing some shopping, I drifted into a contemplation of the state of the world.  I was in such deep thought, that the server asked me if I was OK.

What captivated my brain was the fact that 195 nations signed the Paris Global Warming Agreement. 195 nations are concerned about this phenomenon, and have a substantial agreement on the science linking CO2 to global warming.   This is not surprising as the English scientist, John Tyndall,  discovered in 1859 that CO2 in the atmosphere is the reason the earth can maintain an atmosphere by trapping infrared light and maintaining the temperature that allows life to exist on earth.  Scientists all over the world ever since have been verifying that basic fact of life and never disproving it.

Yet, hardcore Republicans call this junk science.  If this was junk science, would China agree with it?  Would India agree with it?  Would Bangladesh, Brazil, Iran, Russia, Germany and the rest of the 195 countries agree with it?  Wouldn't a large group of scientists somewhere in this world be broadcasting far and wide the error of this science?

Instead, in Donald Trump fashion, the hard core conservative wing of the GOP calls it junk science, slandering this 155 year old scientific discovery to preserve what?  The right to burn any fossil fuel without paying for the social costs in the future.  Creating economic opportunity from owning land at higher elevations. (For the record, while I am 42' above sea level, all the economic value from my home relies on economic activity at lower elevations).

While a century ago people did not think about what they were doing to future generations, they just wanted to survive, shouldn't our wealth and education give us a greater purpose in preserving this earth for future generations?  Isn't that the purpose of living?

Why does the political party of the religious not think this way?  I thought religion was supposed to make people reflective.

Instead, they want to do nothing about global warming, they want to send troops into situations that will only inspire thousands of have nots in the Islamic World to join Jihad so they can meet their virgins in heaven and take some of our troops with them.  I don't understand why so many jihadists, who are mainly young men with their life in front of them, want to commit suicide and kill Americans or other Muslims.

I think the language of Wahhabism is a primary cause.  I think RedStateVT is correct that violent video games, movies and words have motivational consequences that are a danger to society.  And I think that politicians who speak in violent disrespectful terms of their opponents run the risk of inspiring inappropriate and illegal behavior.  Yet, conservative talk radio is a leading source of violent political language in this country.  But changing that in the U.S. requires a Constitutional Amendment and that isn't going to happen.

And the result of that is Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are rallying the KKK/John Birch successors as their supporters.  This is similar to Prohibition when the country was divided in an similar fashion to the way it is today.  It took a depression and a world war to created liberals and conservatives in both parties, but that only lasted about 50 years.  Now while the Democrats still have liberals and conservatives, the GOP has only conservative purists and they are generally way over the deep end on many issues from my perspective.

I wish I knew some truly independent voters so I could understand what they are thinking, but I don't.  I have some conservative friends and then a bunch of friends who see the world the way I do.

In 10 months, and two weeks, this will be over, and I can only hope that the Democrats win a monster  victory to put an end to this insanity caused by a lack of reflection.  The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Ross Douthat Finds the Philosophical Fault Line in the GOP Primary Campaign

Well worth reading although I think he has too much faith in any of the candidates to have a philosophical core.  I think all the GOP candidates just pander to one of the GOP bases:  taxes, balanced budgets at the expense of useful government functions, defense, and KKK/John Birch elements.

Link to Ross Douthat column.

Religion is Never Simple

This is something I certainly forget, and it is certainly something that all politicians need to remember.

Ross Douthat's column today is an excellent reminder of that.

Link to Douthat column

And the GOP needs to remember that violent disrespectful language can breed violence.  Their disrespect for the President has had consequences that are now present in the primary campaign and there is no clear way to tone it down and that will certainly have different future consequences that I cannot predict.  But the history of my people tells me I am correct.

Here is a recap of the Crusades and how the Jews suffered from violence fermenting language.

Words can lead to killing

Charles Krauthammer Agrees With Me

Up to a point, because even though he is proposing that we should do more or less exactly what President Obama is doing, he blasts the President for his weak rhetoric.

But leaving that aside, Krauthammer, a former fairly moderate writer for The New Republic, who went over to the deeply conservative side and became a partisan mouthpiece for hardcore conservatism, such as it is today, does slam Donald Trump's worst instincts.

Krauthammer points out that the Kurds are Muslims, and the ban all foreign Muslims would not only capture Syrians, who just might lie when ask if they were Muslim, but also the Kurds, and our "allies" in the Gulf and other Arab countries.  People we need if we are to offset the siren call of ISIS.

Link to Krauthammer column


Which got me thinking about two things.

1.  Alienation is hard thing for society to combat but seems to be a common thread in what motivates terrorism, both domestic and jihadist.  While we need to combat armed terrorists in some manner to keep them contained and the Shiite government in Baghdad did not care to co-opt Sunnis and is now reaping what they sowed.  But so did the Dick Cheney wing of the GOP when then disbanded the Baathist Party, and now those former well trained soldiers/technicians are the core of ISIS's military effort and economic machine.

Technology has changed global society in many ways, and I don't have the answer, but I think we need to think about alienation and what we as a global society can do to reduce it.

It is a very complex process by which one can become alienated, and I doubt there is a 100% foolproof way to prevent it.  I don't own a gun so I cannot act upon this, nor do I want to, but the crazy irresponsible GOP positions alienate me so much that sometimes I fantasize about taking on a bunch of GOP crazies in the hope that they see the error of their ways.  And I am a rational human being with something to lose by doing that.  I can understand how someone who is less rational, with nothing to lose, would actually act out on such a fantasy.

How does society prevent that?  I wonder if there any psychologists out there who are thinking about that and could the political establishment which is failing so miserably at even thinking in this manner, actually listen to them and develop a set of policies that would reduce alienation.

2.  Sometimes I think Donald Trump is on a one man mission to destroy the Republican Party.  But then I remember he has been a birther since Day 1 of President Obama's administration, even though the Fiscal and Monetary stimulus implemented by both the Bush and Obama administrations saved not only the economy, but Donal Trump's wealth.  With the debt he employs in his real estate, he would have been bankrupted by a bankrupt credit allocation system, along with the rest of us.

So why has Donald Trump been so vocal on President Obama's birthplace, promoting the idea that somehow Hawaii doesn't keep records in the same reliable manner that the rest of the country does.  And why is he feeding all these other anti-American, anti-immigrant thoughts.  I cannot think of a better way to destroy the GOP on a national level and I wonder what Donald Trump's motivation is.  I mean Arab's and Chinese and Latino's are prime buyers of his real estate developments all across the U.S.

I am less baffled by Donald Trump's appeal to alienated white lower middle class voters, than I am completely baffled by Donald Trump's motivation.  He is reducing the value of his brand by insulting his buyers.  Perhaps he is has a strange loose screw in his brain, but you can't talk like he does and have dementia, so it is not that.  And why would he want to destroy the GOP, he is not a modern Democrat.

Ross Douthat Explains the GOP Challenge

on Immigration & Terrorism.

Link to Douthat column

Let's not be Stupid

168 dead 680 wounded.

ISIS attack, no Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing.

We didn't bomb Idaho or wherever he was from and there could certainly were more lone wolf's in the intervening 20 years as there have been another 53 mass killings that were random plus all the gang warfare that the website I consulted did not include.

I don't say this to discount ISIS.  Only to point out that the U.S. has a lot of home grown terrorists and two ISIS wanna be's who are now dead don't mean we have to get completely stupid in our response.

If the War on Terrorism, and ISIS is the personification of terrorism, is to be successful, it cannot become a War on Islam because we will never extricate ourselves from a War on Islam as within 1.6 billion Muslims, there will always be 100,000 who want to become martyr's if our 100,000 anti-terrorist force puts itself in a position to be shot at.

The War on Islamic Terrorism can only be defeated by Muslim forces, Western forces can assist, but they will always draw in more people willing to become martyr's for the chance to kill Americans, so we have to be smart about this.  And simply invading with our military might, when the Iraqi's, and the Iranians, and probably not even the Turk's want our troops on the ground there in significant numbers, is not being smart about this.

The GOP wanna be Dick Cheney's must not be allowed back into office.

Hosea

If you click on this post because you know who Hosea was, you are better student of religion than my sorry non-believing self.  But as with all great books, there is a certain amount of wisdom in The Bible.

What caused me to google Hosea was a columnist quoting him: "For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."  The columnist was referring to the GOP's failure to shut down Donald Trump and the Birther's when they were and are being so dishonestly disrespectful of President Obama.  Now this dishonesty is dominating the GOP Presidential campaign and the serious policy wonks cannot escape this morass to campaign on a set of ideas that might attract independent voters.

Anyone who thinks Ted Cruz can unite the ultra-conservatives and win a general election doesn't remember Barry Goldwater (I could be wrong about that which is why, as in sports you play the game, in politics you hold the election.)

Anyway, I googled Hosea and found out who he was.   He lived in about 800 B.C. and in the Old Testament as a Prophet.  What was striking to me was every historic painting portrayal of him showed him to be very dark in skin color.  Which got me thinking, were the original Jews way back when African American as evolution would still have taken some time and perhaps some interbreeding with lighter skin people of more northern climates.  In which case, the Jews and Palestinians are genetically related and the current tribal mess in the Middle East the equivalent of a family dust-up that is completely out of control.

Anyway, I thought the President gave a sound speech last night. We cannot alienate 1.6 billion people, we must co-opt them into our battle against their extremist religious brethren.  Not that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz would do that and that is why I hope they go down into a terrible election defeat in 11 months.

All Gun Violence is Terrorism

Shooting innocent people is the definition of terrorism.  Motive is just an ancillary issue key to understanding why.

As for Republican tweets to pray for the dead, how about praying for the living and doing something about the 40% of gun sales that occur with no background checks and stopping the proliferation of automatic weapons being scattered amongst the population.

Of course these same Republicans pray for the unborn and then vote to cut access to health insurance for the living.

It is time to balance the budget, as well as raise interest rates

I know there are a lot of underemployed older people out there, but the fact of the matter, underemployment is still employment.  You adjust your spending to meet your income.

What is important from a macro-economic standpoint is moving the economic levers in such a manner that long term stability is maintained.  When you are approaching full employment, that means positive real interest rates, and with an inflation rate of @1.5%, that means short rates should be at least 1.75% and long term rates between 3% and 3.25%.  As for fiscal policy, you are supposed to have a budget surplus at full employment.  Instead we have a deficit of 2.5% or so, so you should raise some revenues and cut some spending to close that hole to zero.

Except sequestration and a failure to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure has short funded a lot of things and that is starting to show.  The Secret Service has been starved overworking the existing agents who are making mistakes.  Now I know certain GOP Congressmen might not care if the Secret Service fails right now, but they would if a GOP type were President and they really shouldn't be that mean and cynical.  And they are bankrupting road maintenance by not raising the gasoline tax in over 20 years, while inflation has driven construction costs higher.  Why the Congress is raiding the Federal Reserves profits owed to the banking system to pay for road construction is beyond me.  And then there is the disaster of corporate taxation, as well as abuse of the carried interest strategy.

Anyway, I know that is not coherent because I don't have a detailed grasp of the budget and that is really necessary to make good concrete proposals.  I just know at full employment, the budget should be in a small surplus.

A Challenging Path to Fix the Rat's Nest: i.e. Syria/Iraq, & Ted Cruz Personality

Thomas Friedman, who has studied the Middle East for at least 35 years, and written extensively on the subject played bare the challenges any policy must overcome to be successful at establishing a peaceful state of Iraq and Syria.  And the two are very much intertwined.

"But to sustainably destroy ISIS, you need to understand three things: 1) It is the product of two civil wars; one was between moderate and extremist Sunnis and the other was between Sunnis and Shiites. And they feed each other. 2) The only way to defeat ISIS is to minimize the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites and strengthen the fighting capacity of moderate Sunnis against extremist ones. And 3) the fight has to be led by Arabs and Muslims but strongly backed by America, the E.U. and, yes, Russia."

"To sustainably defeat ISIS you need a mutually reinforcing coalition. You need Saudi Arabia and the leading Sunni religious powers to aggressively delegitimize ISIS’s Islamist narrative. You need Arab, Kurdish and Turkish ground troops — backed by U.S. and NATO air power and special forces, with Russia’s constructive support — to uproot ISIS door to door."

"You need Iran to encourage the Shiite-led government in Baghdad to create a semiautonomous “Sunnistan” in the areas held by ISIS, giving moderate Iraqi Sunnis the same devolved powers as Kurds in Kurdistan so they have a political alternative to ISIS. And you need Iran to agree to a political transition in Syria that would eventually replace Assad."

"In short, you need either a power-sharing political solution that all the key players accept and will enforce, or an armed force to just crush ISIS and then sit on the region indefinitely, so ISIS doesn’t come back. Obama can’t secure the former, and doesn’t want to do the latter. Nor do the American people — nor Obama’s critics, despite what some of them might suggest."

Link to Freidman's column

Meanwhile, Frank Bruni today examined the strange case of Ted Cruz who somehow fails to make friends wherever he has spent considerable time.  Since getting along with people is a prime necessary condition of being a successful politician, at least historically, this is, to me, a strange tactic.

I hope my freshman year roommate with whom I did not develop any real relationship would think more highly of me than Ted Cruz's does of him.

"Anyone but Cruz: That’s the leitmotif of his life, stretching back to college at Princeton. His freshman roommate, Craig Mazin, told Patricia Murphy of The Daily Beast: “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.”"

And I know my former co-workers think more highly of me than the following, witness my friendship with RedStateVt who encouraged me to write this blog.

"The political strategist Matthew Dowd, who worked for Bush back then, tweeted that “if truth serum was given to the staff of the 2000 Bush campaign,” an enormous percentage of them “would vote for Trump over Cruz.”"

"Another Bush 2000 alumnus said to me: “Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time.”"

Link to Frank Bruni's column

Some Good News in the Paper This Morning: Sheldon Silver Jail Bird, Federal Reserve Powers and NY Football

Sheldon Silver, the corrupt and obnoxious, Democratic Leader of the NY State Assembly was found guilty on all counts and will now have to resign his seat.  If Skelos, the Republican Senate Leader, is found guilty on all counts, he will be gone for good and maybe the legislatures of NY will clean house and figure out how to remain clean.  Then it will be up to the voters to elect people of intelligence to the Legislature, who will figure out how to reduce the state's debt, while growing the economy of upstate NY.

The Federal Reserve found a way to satisfy Dodd-Frank and maintain its lender of last resort function.  Although I don't expect them to have to use it in my remaining life time, as we saw in 2008, that function is critical to avoiding depressions when you have a credit crunch.  It is sound economic policy to have an institution with unfettered power to be the lender of last resort, as Milton Friedman wrote so well about.

The NY Giants offensive line is in a shambles health wise and they were not that good when they were healthy.  So I can just root for the Jets vs the Giants this weekend because a victory will do the better team more good, and maybe the Giant brain trust will figure out a way to rebuild the O and the D Line, neither of which are playing up the Big Blue standards.