WILLisms.com: March 2005 Archives

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Sandy Berger Pleads Guilty In Trouser-gate.

Kerry campaign operative Sandy Berger, Guilty (via PoliPundit.com).

More "Burger" humor, from Wizbang blog.

Michelle Malkin has a great round-up on the Berger business.

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 March 2005 10:09 PM · Comments (6)

Reform Thursday: Week Nine.

Thursdays are good days for reform, because they fall between Wednesdays and Fridays.

That's why WILLisms.com will display a chart or graph, every Thursday, pertinent to Social Security reform. The graphics are mostly self-explanatory, but we include commentary on some of them where and when necessary.

Today's graphic comes to us from the left-wing Economic Policy Institute:

Click image for original.

The very left-leaning Economic Policy Institute opposes Social Security reform, yet they display the graphic (which needs some minor updating following the new Trustees Report) on their website), one might suppose, to make the case that there is no impending crisis.

However, as 15-year-old Alex Binz points out, the time between now and 2041 is not as wonderful and carefree as groups like the Economic Policy Institute want us to believe. Beginning in just about a dozen years (very much the short-term), in 2017, Social Security will begin to have more benefit obligations than revenues. It will owe more than it takes in.

What will sustain the system another two dozen years beyond 2017 is the "trust fund." This "trust fund" is a troubling misnomer: the money in the so-called "trust fund" is actually being spent each year by the federal bureaucracy, not put into any kind of Algorian "lock-box."

Furthermore, once the storm does hit and the government IOUs run out, in 2041, the promised benefits for the WILLisms.com generation drop drastically, without any rebound in sight.

Why, then, does a liberal anti-reform organization display today's Reform Thursday image, which, although partially misleading, is actually consequential evidence for reform?

Blind ideology/partisanship, perhaps?

Or maybe the Economic Policy Institute truly wants to "gut" promised benefits for those now in their 20s. Someone born in 1981 will see a major slash in benefits, guaranteed, if Congress does not act soon to reform the system.

Previous Reform Thursday graphics can be seen here:

Tune into WILLisms.com each Thursday for more important graphical data supporting Social Security reform.

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 March 2005 09:34 AM · Comments (1)

Terri Schiavo Has Passed Away.

Terri Schiavo died today after fighting to stay alive for two weeks.

Rest in peace, Terri.

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 March 2005 09:20 AM · Comments (9)

A 15-Year-Old's Brilliant Social Security Analysis.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (what a cool word, "intelligencer") has this guest commentary on Social Security from 15-year-old Alex Binz (via the AlphaPatriot blog). Here is a taste:

The trust fund is "invested" in special-issue bonds and government IOUs. In other words, the trust fund money is separated from the general fund, loaned to the federal government and then spent on all kinds of programs through the general fund. Bureaucrats get the best of both worlds: They can claim (rightly) that the money is set aside in bonds but they still get to spend it freely.
There is no substance behind the trust fund; it is a mere promise of repayment, without any money backing up that promise. Without any real assets, Social Security resembles nothing more than a pyramid scheme, funneling money from new "investors" (current workers) to those who invested from the beginning (current retirees). And like any pyramid scheme, it cannot hold out forever. The SSA itself admits that by 2018 retiree benefits will exceed worker contributions. It will run a deficit, cash in its bonds and eventually have them dissolve for all the world to see.

Fantastic. Send that kid to Washington. Quick.

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 March 2005 08:53 AM · Comments (3)

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 2 -- Oldest Senate Ever.

Today's trivia tidbit:

The average Senator serving today is 60.4 years of age.
The 109th Congress (that's the current one) has the oldest Senate on record.

-From the Director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, March 24, 2005.

That number is amazing, given some of the older Senators, such as Strom Thurmond, that we've seen retire in recent years.

Previous trivia tidbits:

Part 1.

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 March 2005 05:10 AM · Comments (2)

Zimbabwe: Voting Underway (Brace Yourselves).

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition to Mugabe's ruling party (ZANU-PF):

Looks like some of the women voting are probably dressed in their "Sunday best":

Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe, is framing the election as a referendum on.... Tony Blair.

More good stuff, as usual, at Publius Pundit.

Another blog, Sokwanele, has rapid-fire updates.

Gateway Pundit is also following events in Zimbabwe.

By the way, Mugabe is looking way stylish in those threads:

Posted by Will Franklin · 31 March 2005 02:22 AM · Comments (1)

The Babe Theory Goes To Kuwait.

If you have yet to read up on The Babe Theory of Political Movements, take a moment to do so. Otherwise, you might be lost.

Kuwaiti Babes Following "The Blueprint," literally (click pictures for more):

(this one via instapundit)

Blue is the new Orange.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 March 2005 04:23 PM · Comments (0)

CHE = WAY LAME: "...being impaled by a Bolshevik isn't pretty."

Bridget Johnson, a.k.a. "GOP Vixen," writing in OpinionJournal, has a great piece on Hollywood's unfortunate love affair with Ernesto "Che" Guevara:

Annoying as the Che adulation is, a recent comment by a 14-year-old on an online movie message board was truly disturbing: "I just saw The Motorcycle Diaries, which further made me question: Why is communism bad? . . . Young people are told how bad communism is, but we are not told why. . . . The Motorcycle Diaries showed me how Ernesto Guevara wanted to help people. . . . But this did not explain why he was such a 'bad' person and apparently deserved to be murdered by the U.S."
Is this a legacy of dangerous ignorance that the makers of "Che" wish to continue? Might this teen be taught that the product of Guevara and Castro's "revolution" is a nation whose inhabitants still risk their lives to escape--and an estimated one-third die trying? A nation where neighbor spies on neighbor, where dissent lands one in the clink--or worse--and persecution is punishment for everything from religion to homosexuality?

....

Che Guevara['s] ...legacy includes both ordering and conducting executions and founding forced labor camps. "Guevara . . . quickly gain[ed] a reputation for ruthlessness; a child in his guerrilla unit who had stolen a little food was immediately shot without trial," writes Pascal Fontaine in "The Black Book." Guevara also wrote in his diary about executing peasant Eutimio Guerra, a suspected informant, with a single .32-caliber shot to the head. Guevara, in his will, praised the "extremely useful hatred that turns men into effective, violent, merciless, and cold killing machines." He tried to spread the havoc caused by the Cuban revolution in other countries from Africa to South America, rallying for "two, three, many Vietnams!"

Guevara oversaw executions at La Cabana prison; some of those executed were his former comrades who wouldn't relinquish their democratic beliefs. "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," he said. He didn't assuage his barbarity by being a brilliant statesman, either, helping drive the economy to ruin as head of Cuba's central bank and minister of industries. "Though claiming to despise money," writes Fontaine, "he lived in one of the rich, private areas of Havana." Guevara told a British reporter after the Cuban Missile Crisis that the nukes would have been fired if they were under Cuban control--which would have wasted all of those future American suburban revolutionary wannabes.

This touched off a mini blogswarm.

Dean's World has this great take on Che:

Oh thank you Che! You helped replace a brutal thug named Batista with an even more brutal thug named Castro! And in the process you helped make the poor of Cuba even poorer, helped further suppress free speech, and were proud to institutionalize torture and terror for everyday Cubans! On top of all those glorious things, you wrote poetry!
Che, you looked so handsome and dashing on your motorcycle! But you were even more handsome and dashing when you were terrorizing Cuban peasants, blowing their skulls to bits with your personal sidearm! You romantic Stalin-loving poet you!

Professor Chaos (via The Jawa Report), meanwhile, coins a great new term for preppy Che-lovers:

I'm seeking suggestions as to how I should deal with a student who is very smart, quite leftist, who has a Che Guevara patch on his backpack -- and yet shows up to class wearing a Polo sweater? I suppose I could just call him Che Lauren, but maybe that's too obvious. Let me know if you can think of a way to tease this kid without being too harsh.
Viva la Revolucion! (unless of course it interferes with my yoga)

Cuban Val Prieto, at Babalu Blog, believes "The New McCarthyism Stems From Hollywood":

I wont editorialize any further on Hollywood's love for dictators and murderous Marxists. All I will say is that they would be hardpressed to express any of their "artistic freedoms" in a country like Cuba, whose government sees the stifling of individuals' freedom as the number one priority.

There's more on the romanticized version of Che in Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus, at National Review, including this letter from a reader:

Everyone (except me) immediately jumped in and started raving about what a great country Cuba was, compared with the U.S.: better health care, lower infant mortality, and the music!!! Plus, Fidel, Che, and the revolutionaries — how romantic!
If I hadn't been reading NR and NRO, I might have just checked out. But I paid attention. Specifically, I watched how the Cuban couple reacted to these statements.

To put it mildly, the look on their faces was one of disbelief.

Earlier comments by Jay Nordlinger on "Che Chic":

Listen to what Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the Miami congressman, has to say about Che... : "Guevara was an Argentinian loser who alleged he was a doctor even though he couldn't give a simple flu shot. What he was good at was killing people, and he became one of history's cruelest serial killers. He was Castro's primary henchman, murdering hundreds of innocent people without due process, usually finishing off the work of the mass-production firing squads with shots to the back of the neck. He was and will always be the most despicable, disgusting figure of the Castro killing machine, the foreigner who was made a serial killer of Cubans by Castro, and got great pleasure from his role."
Indeed, he did. Guevara, famous as he is — famous as his mug is — is little known. He was, as Diaz-Balart says, Castro's number-one revolutionary thug. He presided over those summary executions at La Cabaña — the old fortress that Guevara commandeered — and he very much enjoyed administering the coup de grâce. He also enjoyed parading people past El Paredón, the reddened wall against which the victims were killed. Viva Cristo Rey! ("Long Live Christ the King!") they would sometimes yell.

Remember this, too: Guevara founded the labor-camp system, in which countless Cubans — judged "deviant" by the regime — would suffer and die. This is the Cuban gulag; it is Che's legacy....

It could be that the '60s liberals will never give Guevara up, no matter how much they know. They have too much invested in him. It would be like turning their backs on themselves, or smashing their Beatles LPs.

We at WILLisms.com believe that there ought to be a response to all those Che t-shirts. They are simply everywhere, on everyone, from celebrities such as Carlos Santana at the Oscars, to hundreds of thousands of suburban revolutionaries around the country.

Many kids wear these ubiquitous Che shirts without really knowing what they mean.

Personal experience:

I was at the mall recently, when I spotted a kid, no more than 11 or 12 year old, purchase a Che shirt from one of those t-shirt kiosks.

I went over to him and asked him, "why did you buy that shirt?"

Kid: "Because it's cool."

Me: "Do you know who that is on the t-shirt?"

Kid: "The Doors?"

He thought it was Jim Morrison, from The Doors. Jim Morrison!

Thus:

In our Gift Shop, at cafepress.com, we had (as in formerly) merchandise with this image on it (a thumbnail version):

It's Che. With a Groucho Marx look, the glasses, the nose, the eyebrows and moustache. Get it? Che, the Marxist? And he's lame. It says it right there. Moderately funny, at least, but more importantly, it makes a statement.

Apparently this image was against the policies of cafepress.com, our gift shop, which is unfortunate.

The above image breaks absolutely no American copyright law (which is derived from the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), as it falls under "fair use" rules. It is both parody and important social commentary, important aspects of the "fair use doctrine."

Still, because of a lawsuit in a British court a few years back, cafepress.com goes out of its way to avoid litigation against it. They made the image "pending," which just means it cannot be used.

The photographer who snapped the famous image, Alberto Diaz Gutierrez, or "Korda" (now passed away), joined Cuba Solidarity Campaign's copyright infringement suit five years ago against Absolut Vodka in London's High Court and won:

"As a supporter of the ideals for which Che Guevara died, I am not averse to its reproduction by those who wish to propagate his memory and the cause of social justice throughout the world," he said. "But I am categorically against the exploitation of Che's image for the promotion of products such as alcohol, or for any purpose that denigrates the reputation of Che."

Well, we care all about "social justice," but our definition does not overlap much with the socialists' definition. But, honestly, what Gutierrez wanted before he died doesn't matter. In the United States, we are allowed to use a famous image of someone like Che and alter it to make a political statement. If we want to denigrate the reputation of Che (and boy does his reputation deserve denigration), we are allowed to do so.

That's part of what makes this country so great.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 March 2005 03:40 PM · Comments (3)

Abominable.

Just sick (via OTB) (via The Jawa Report):

"Terri Schiavo's Blog"

What is wrong with some people?

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 March 2005 01:32 PM · Comments (3)

President Bush's Popularity.

Liberal blogs are giddy at what they believe is a negative political fallout for President Bush and Republicans over the past couple of weeks. The media polls seem to indicate that the American public, collectively, is irritated that certain officials would have the audacity to try to save a woman from being starved and dehydrated to death (by the way, if Terri Schiavo was really a "vegetable" on "life support," how is it that she has fought to stay alive for these past two weeks?).

Katie Naranjo, writing at The Burnt Orange Report, a liberal Texas-based blog, puts it this way:

Bush's Public Popularity Down!!! Slightly Happy.
The sad or serious face that President Bush will be wearing in upcoming weeks is due to a slide in his popularity with the public. What are the issues that might have added to this almost 10-point slide, one might ask. Well, a recent decision by the Bush administration to support controversial issues is one reason. Meaning the attempt to intervene in the Terri Schaivo hearings and family conflicts.

...So why am I writing about Bush's popularity, when you can watch CNN and hear. Simply I was excited, that after poking the Federal nose into none of its business it showed that voters are mildly informed about the Fed's actions.

She shouldn't be so excited. Only 37% of Americans approve of the Democratic leaders in Congress, a number below both George W. Bush and Republican leaders in Congress.

Another liberal blog also seems thoroughly giddy at the prospects of a backlash in Florida against Republicans over their actions in the Terri Schiavo case.

Well, that's one way of looking at it. It's also completely off the mark. Elections are not won or lost in March of the previous year.

The recent polls are missing all those Bush supporters (and not just Bush supporters, but the specific hardcore conservatives who are fired up over the Schiavo issue), just like the polls missed the President's support right before the election.

WILLisms.com has a few theories on why this happened:

I. The polls are using increasingly unrepresentative samples.

Two main reasons for this.

1. First, there is something called a "response rate" in polling, which has declined precipitously over the years. In the 1970s, the response rate would commonly be in the 70% range; today, the response rate is often as low as 25%.

Because telemarketers have become so ubiquitous, an individual is less likely to answer the phone and talk to a pollster.

We have a hunch, although it has not been proven scientifically, that Republicans are less likely than Democrats to want to chat with a total stranger on the phone for half an hour about their opinions.

Why? Well, Republicans are more likely to have houses (which require maintenance) than Democrats, more likely to have children than Democrats, more likely to be involved in actual things (church, sports, hobbies) than Democrats [note: This comes from actual political science research. Just about the only activity Democrats do more than Republicans is watch television.].

Thus, Republicans are more busy than Democrats with life.

Also, Republicans tend to have adversarial attitudes toward "the media," and polls are part of that media. This effect has actually been demonstrated empirically in exit polls in particular, with Republicans less likely to take a survey.

2. Second, pollsters are not factoring in the trend toward Republicanism we've seen in this country in recent years, the "realignment" of politics away from a Democrat-dominated majority to a Republican-dominated majority. Some are not even willing to admit this is happening.

Partisanship is amazingly stable for individuals, although at the aggregate level, political scientists have witnessed a slight Republican realignment (a rolling realignment), or, at the very least, a steady loss of New Deal Democrats to generational replacement.

We know all this from solid political science scholarship. But in some of these polls, the proportions of Republicans or Democrats wildly fluctuates, week by week. In the recent polls, this is the case, almost certainly inclusive of too many Democrats and too few Republicans.

Maybe people are changing their party ID based on the events surrounding Terri Schiavo, but that is supremely doubtful. It's amazing how persistent party attachments are at the individual level, especially during highly polarized times (and we're in one of those times now). At the aggregate level, rapid fluctuation really doesn't happen like that over the period of a week, and definitely not on something like the Schiavo issue.

So, the polls have failed to sample the proper levels of Democrats and Republicans, on purpose. Not all are doing this maliciously, necessarily, but all are doing it on purpose.

II. There is a very real difference between "likely voters," "registered voters," and "not gonna voters."

In some of these surveys, we see large numbers of people who are definitely not going to vote, or at least are not very likely to vote.

For some liberals, this is perfectly fine. Public opinion, they argue, ought to include the entire population, and when it does, it is the true manifestation of that ideal we call "democracy."

In polling conducted during off-years (when there is no major election), it is even more difficult to determine who is really a voter and who is not.

There is a very real problem with polling everyone, regardless of whether they are likely to vote or not. There are large segments of the population that do not vote, because for them, voting is an investment of time and other resources they are not willing to pay. It requires learning about the candidates, learning about the issues, talking with others about it, and so forth; voting is much more than waiting 5 minutes to pull a lever or punch a few buttons.

Many people choose not to be engaged in the process, and, if that's their decision, that's their decision.

But when a pollster puts those apolitical people on the spot and asks often leading questions (bordering push polling many times), they are going to offer uninformed, perhaps even random, answers. This can distort the policy equation because of the elite's (politicians, journalists, etc.) addiction to polling.

WHY LIBERALS ARE GIDDY-

Having suffered so many electoral setbacks in recent years, liberals yearn for something, anything, that might get their fortunes back in order. Some liberals still cling to the notion that Democrats deserve to win, because they are "for the people." Some Democrats have not yet given up on the mentality, developed over nearly half a century of political dominance, that they are the majority party. Whatever it takes to get that status back, they will pounce on it.

Make no mistake, liberals want to make President Bush into a lame duck as quickly as they can, and they will trumpet any poll that proves that point, no matter how "off" the sampling is. Meanwhile, the media will continue to manufacture polling outcomes to fit their narratives of events.

One problem with pinning the alleged backlash on President Bush or Republicans is that this is not a partisan issue or a religious conservative issue, despite what Paul Krugman might say.

It is a moral issue, and many Democrats, including ultra-liberal Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, plus activists like Ralph Nader and Jesse Jackson, and even The Village Voice, have all come out against what is being done to Terri.

Another problem with pinning some kind of "blame" on the GOP for overreach on the Terri Schiavo situation is the fact that many Congressional Democrats supported the emergency legislation intended to save Terri's life. This should never have been a partisan political issue, but the far-left blogs and groups like moveon.org have politicized it beyond repair. That now-discredited fake "GOP memo," widely reported at the time, probably made the far-left feel it had the obligation to turn this into a partisan issue. That fake memo, allegedly written as some kind of political blueprint for Republicans, probably looked like a green light for both the media and the far-left (sometimes it is difficult to distinguish) to excoriate Republicans for their "pandering," "grandstanding," and the like.

It never crossed their minds that maybe, just maybe, those supporting Terri against her forced starvation/dehydration, actually cared about her life, as well as the broader culture of life at stake in America today.

The bottom line is that, right now, President Bush's popularity is probably within one or two percent, no more or less, of what he received in November. Partisan movements in the American electorate occur over the long-term, not after a two weeks of extremely slanted media coverage.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 March 2005 11:49 AM · Comments (4)

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day, Part 1 -- Generational Turnover.

New Feature here at WILLisms.com.

We're going to have a daily trivia tidbit, usually pertaining to politics. Maybe you'll learn something, who knows.

Today's:
Nearly 50% of the American electorate is replaced every 20 years through normal generational turnover.

-Page 114 of American Public Opinion: Its Origins, Content, and Impact, written by Professors Robert S. Erikson and Kent L. Tedin.

So, half of those voting in 1985 have been replaced, as of this year. Likewise, we may see an escalation of this phenomenon over the next 20 years.

Something to think about when dealing with issues like Social Security reform, which, at its core, is a generational issue.

Posted by Will Franklin · 30 March 2005 10:08 AM · Comments (2)

George Felos: Litigation As Spiritual Practice.

Weird:

Litigation As Spiritual Practice, by George Felos, Michael Schiavo's lawyer:

Just bizarre.

UPDATE:

More, from National Review.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 March 2005 10:46 PM · Comments (2)

Johnny Cochran Has Passed Away.

Johnny Cochran died today of a brain tumor.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 March 2005 08:51 PM · Comments (2)

Classiness, All Around Us.

Click to explore more WILLisms.com.

In no particular order, WILLisms.com presents classiness from the blogosphere:

The SCOTUS blog notes that the Supreme Court is conflicted over file-swapping on the internet:

The Supreme Court put on public display Tuesday two conflicting reactions to the apparently widespread practice of downloading copyrighted songs and movies from the Internet: a concern that software makers may be too enthusiastically encouraging the habit, and a concern that copyright law not be made so restrictive that it stifles new surges of technology creativity. The Court also showed some signs of unease with the adequacy in the Internet age of the central precedent at issue, the 1984 ruling in the Sony Betamax case.

Don Luskin, at Social Security Choice, notes an OpinionJournal article that offers "A glimpse into the democratic mind":

It reveals the full extent of the partisan cynicism of the Democrats' blocking strategy against Social Security modernization, and the full extent of the risk if the Democrats get control of the process.

Chrenkoff offers "Three cheers for Albania":

...a better ally than France and Germany.

Hyscience looks at "Michael Schiavo and the autopsy scam":

Michael Schiavo and George Felos now say that they want an autopsy to "prove" the extent of Terri's brain injuries. Can anyone please tell me why a rational person wouldn't have found out for sure through PET and MRI scans before they starved and dehydrated her to death?

In the Agora looks at the left-wing tilt on college campuses:

Howard Kurtz reports in today's Washington Post that "[c]ollege faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined." 72 percent of college faculty describe themselves as "liberal," with only 15 percent labeling themself "conservative." 50 percent identified themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans. Disparity at so-called "elite" schools, it seems, is even more pronounced. The report offers percentage views on specific issues as well.

The California Patriot blog takes a look at Ward Churchill's visit to Berkeley:

I was able to get the gist of the whole discussion: the White Man is bad (it’s good to be reminded sometimes), we live in a police-state, and that identity politics is the name of the game. The forum focused so much on the racial differences and antagonisms between whites and non-whites that it seems Ethnic Studies likes to feed off from the conflict between the two groups, and that continuing to emphasize the conflicts is the only way to stay relevant in political discussions.

Patrick Ruffini asks, "Who's Gambling With Social Security? Not Republicans":

They're gambling that Social Security doesn't have a problem, and doubling down that the economy will just fix everything.
Just which side gives us the biggest risk here? What if the Republicans are wrong? Well, they just solved a problem that wasn't quite as urgent as thought -- and in the process gave millions the freedom to invest and earn returns far greater than the present Social Security system. What if the Democrats are wrong? Well, Social Security goes broke.

Call me crazy. But, for me, it isn't hard to tell who's playing it safe with Social Security, and who's gambling our retirement away.

Austin Bay predicts a fraudulent election on March 31 in Zimbabwe:

Here’s a very safe prediction: Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe, will cheat. Why not? He’s done it before and gotten away with it.

PoliPundit looks at "Dog Whistle Politics" in the U.K. and U.S.:

“Dog Whistle” politics is all the rage across the pond. The phrase means “putting out a message that, like a high-pitched dog-whistle, is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed.”
This naturally prompted ultra-lefty kook Kos to say:

we saw the Republicans employ that in 2004 to some degree. For example, Bush’s puzzling debate diss of the Dred Scott decision left the vast majority of people scratching their heads, but the anti-abortion movement knew exactly what he was saying. It’s Religious Right code for attacking Roe v. Wade.

So condemning slavery = being pro-life. That’s some dog whistle!

10.

Captain's Quarters blog believes Bhutan could be next on the democracy chain:

We may have started the most potent political movement in Asia since Mao wrote his Little Red Book -- and this movement could bring peace to an entire continent once it runs its course.

And don't forget to check out the classy WILLisms.com Featured Posts on the left-hand sidebar, plus Lebanon's Young People Power and Beautiful Kyrgyzstan.

Previous Certifications of Classiness from WILLisms.com:

March 3, 2005

March 9, 2005

March 15, 2005

March 22, 2005

WILLisms.com offers a classiness roundup as a weekly feature, every Tuesday, with 10 posts deemed classy. If you would like to nominate a post on your blog or another blog for inclusion, email us at WILLisms@gmail.com. Write "Classy Nomination" in the subject.

At some point in the future, we're also going to introduce a roundup of lameness, which will provide examples of shrill, angry, extremist, anti-American, self-loathing, intentionally misleading, and other unclassy posts from blogs. Again, email us at WILLisms@gmail.com to submit nominations.

Classy.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 March 2005 11:20 AM · Comments (4)

Lebanon's Young People Power.

Young demonstrators this week in Lebanon have continued to urge the complete removal of Syrian presence in Lebanon, demanding free and fair elections (click images for larger versions):

The Associated Press notes:

Lebanese opposition protesters hold portraits of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri as they march during a pro-opposition demonstration in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday March 28, 2005. More than 5,000 women belonging to pro-opposition groups walked about one kilometer (0.6 mile) from the bombing site near the seafront Saint Georges Hotel to Martyrs' Square a few meters (yards) from Hariri's grave, shouting anti-Syrian slogans, singing patriotic songs and waving Lebanese flags and Hariri's pictures.

In response:

Syria has cut back its troops in Lebanon to the lowest level in three decades as 2,000 more soldiers returned home in recent days, the Lebanese military said Monday.
The move put Damascus on track to have all its forces out of Lebanon before parliamentary elections in May, meeting a key U.S. and U.N. demand.

In The Daily Star, Samir Khalaf writes that "Lebanon's youths are now writing their own future":

For almost four decades of my active life as a social scientist and humanist I have been documenting Lebanon's enigmatic and contested existence; this is the first time I feel more than just a flush of elusive enthusiasm....
By acquiring a life of its own the uprising was "Lebanonized" into a mélange of seemingly dissonant elements: it became a rock concert, a triumphal post World Cup soccer rally, something of a carnival. Youths observed candlelight vigils, created human-chains, scribbled artistic manifestos and graffiti and held up posters demanding that Syria "get out." Little children offered flowers to stunned soldiers. Christians and Muslims prayed in unison over Hariri's grave site....

Generations too young to have participated in or to remember earlier episodes of national emancipation, are receiving overdue tutelage in national character building. They are giving notice that the future architects of a sovereign, free and independent Lebanon have just made their entry into public life. The country will not be the same again.

Indeed, a great deal of the story of Lebanon's recent democratic rumblings is a story of youth. Much of the coming story of freedom in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa will be written by youth, as well.

The median age of a Lebanese citizen is 26.9 years (25.9 for males, 27.9 for females).

Other Middle Eastern countries-

Iran's median age is 23.5 years (23.3 for males, 23.7 for females), coinciding with the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In Bahrain, the median age is 29 years (31.9 for males, 25.3 years for females). Egypt's median age is 23.4 years (23 for males, 23.8 for females). Saudi Arabia's, meanwhile, is 21.2 years (22.8 for makes and 19.1 for females).

Africa, Asia, and the U.S.-

In Zimbabwe, the median age is 19.1 years (with both males and females at 19.1).

In Taiwan, with a median age of 33.7 years (33.3 for males, 34.1 for females) the recent demonstrations were unique and not dependent on youth. The Taiwanese have been living as a free society for decades now, and their recent pro-freedom demonstrations were a reaction to unnecessary rhetorical belligerence on the part of China.

Comparatively, the median age for the United States is 36 years (34.7 for males, 37.4 for females).

Median ages in the nations of the former U.S.S.R.:

In Kyrgyzstan, the median age is 23.1 years (22.2 for males, 24 for females). In Tajikistan, the median age is 19.5 years (19.2 for males, 19.8 for females).

Belarus, meanwhile, faces another potential hurdle (other than brutality on the part of its government against democratic opposition), as its median age is 36.9 years (34.2 for men, 39.5 years for women).

However, Ukraine's Orange Revolution last year proved that a country can achieve democracy with a more mature populace. Yushchenko's victory was all that much more astonishing, given Ukraine's high median age (38.1 years overall, 34.8 for males, 41.1 years for females). Ukraine's situation had been building for more than a decade, as it struggled to find its identity following the Soviet era. Ukraine also was never as culturally oppressive as certain countries in the Middle East, and its Orange/Chestnut movement was largely spurred by religious groups.

Too Youthful?

The median age is just one way of measuring the youthfulness of a country. Sometimes age is an indicator of low or high birth rates, wars, disasters/famines, demographic bulges, while sometimes it is just a harbinger of wealth. A high median age can simply mean a society is prosperous and its citizens generally survive childhood and live into old age.

For example, Ukraine's under-15 population is 15.9% of its population, while in Iraq that age group is 40.3% (in the U.S. it is 20.8%; in Lebanon, that figure is 26.9%; for the entire world population, that number is 28.2%).

In most African countries, the under-15 segment of the population is over 40%. Zimbabwe is a relatively old African country, with 39.4% of its population under 15.

A variety of factors contribute to this bulge, found mostly in the third world, including high childhood mortality, diseases like AIDS, high birthrates, wars and other violence, and inadequate adult health care.

When too many of a society's citizens are under 15, the youth become a burden on families and on the state. There are simply resource procurement and allocation issues when such a large part of the society is under 15 and mostly not able to earn a living.

In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the proportions of 0-14 year-olds are 43.8% and 49%, respectively. These enormous youthful bulges are undeniable sources of instability.

Other countries of note (under 15 proportion of population):
Russia- 15%
Belarus- 16.3%
Georgia- 18.7%
Armenia- 22.7%
Azerbaijan- 27%

Kyrgyzstan- 32.3%
Uzbekistan- 34.1%
Turkmenistan- 36.2%
Tajikistan- 39.2%

Iran- 28%
Bahrain- 28.4%
Egypt- 33.4%
Saudi Arabia- 38.3%

Japan- 14.3%
Taiwan- 19.9%
China- 22.3%

We might conclude, then, that a country with a young population, but not too young, is good. A little stirring of the stagnant pot happens with a youthful population; serious instability, and indeed very real hurdles to democracy, come from a too-youthful population.

Youth have the power to lead the next great wave of democratization, but they also have the potential to become a ticking time-bomb of disgruntled resentment, diverted away authoritarian regimes by skillful government propagandists toward the U.S. (or Israel, or "the West"). The demographic bulge of youth many nations have today has very real power to breed instability. Whether democracy and freedom arises from the instability will depend on many factors, and the United States can only control a portion of them.

Ultimately, everyone in the world wants the same basic things. They want peace, stability, and prosperity. They want to be able to raise and provide for a family. Rampant unemployment among the youth populations in the third world can undermine the achievement of these basic goals and serve as a font of fundamentalism, even outright terrorism.

Extremist-fomenting imams and clerics can turn their mosques into factories of anti-Americanism, channeling the youth into a destabilizing force. Sometimes it is not a religious group doing the indoctrination, but the government itself. As Natan Sharanky explains in The Case For Democracy, authoritarian regimes must create external enemies "to slow down the natural process of alienation within fear societies."

We see this kind of deflection of internal problems and youthful angst onto external enemies, in Saudi Arabia and Egypt today.

As we can see from the positive example of Lebanon, however, youth movements have the power to transform a society for good. The key is directing the energies of the youth toward the right solutions. As technology proliferates around the world, including cell phones, satellites, and the internet, the youthful populations in even the most repressive countries are discovering that they want a piece of this democracy they are observing in the United States and elsewhere. These same young people also want the prosperity and stability that flows from democracy.

More from Samir Khalaf on Lebanon's recent youth-driven democracy movement, describing the March 14 rally:

Lebanese youths, often berated as quietist, disaffected and wedded to ephemeral pleasures and consumerism, reawakened with a vengeance. They are emerging as the most recalcitrant opponents of those undermining the sovereignty and wellbeing of their country. On their own, without the support of political parties, blocs and mainstream voluntary associations, they are forming advocacy and emancipatory grass-roots movements to shore up national sentiments and sustain modes of resistance. Most refreshing is the new political language they offer, which is in stark contrast to that of bombs, the intelligence services and the lethargy of family and tribal dynasties that continue to beleaguer the region's political landscape.

Bravo to Lebanese youth power. While the growth of democracy still has a long way to go, with much yet to overcome, Lebanon has proven that the power of young people can be put to work for good. Reformers in other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, with similar demographics (hint, hint, Iran), may learn a thing or two from the course of events in Lebanon.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 March 2005 05:30 AM · Comments (0)

Beautiful Kyrgyzstan.

A few reasons to root for a Kyrgyzstan free of political tyranny (click images to see larger versions, courtesy of TrekEarth):

The future of Kyrgyzstan:

Suusamir valley:

Manas, the Kyrgyz folk hero, in Bishkek:

Lake Issuk-Kul:

Naan, or lepyoshka, a type of bread:

A mountain named after Lenin:

Dzierzynski Peak:

Some beautiful souvenirs:

Yurts:

Market, in Osh:

River of wool, or Kyrgyz traffic jam:

Drusba Park:

A beautiful place.

Meanwhile, here is the latest:

The Moscow Times (via Registan) believes "now the time is ripe for revolutions." But which country is next?

An editorial in The Washington Post explains:

...neighbors such as China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan aren't likely to welcome the creation of a genuine democracy in Central Asia.
Yet if its revolution ends in pluralism, tiny Kyrgyzstan could have a crucial influence on the half-dozen other former Soviet republics where autocrats still rule. At a minimum, surviving dictators may conclude that the old trick of staging a rigged election is no longer safe.

Some would say that democracy can only flourish in rich countries, or in countries with Judeo-Christian roots, or in countries with English-speaking people, or in countries with highly urbanized populations. Some of those factors certainly might make transitions to democracy easier, but their absence in no way precludes freedom from taking root.

Similarly, some believe that free enterprise systems, based on true market capitalism, free of cronyism and corruption, can only emerge in certain types of countries, with certain types of people.

They are wrong.

Don't expect Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson, reincarnated, in Bishkek or Chivhu, debating the nature of freedom and tyranny, crafting a compromise to last the ages, but do expect profound and meaningful steps forward.

If we expect any less, if we do not support those nascent democratic movements around the globe, it would sell the sincere forces of democracy short.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 March 2005 05:00 AM · Comments (1)

Terri Schiavo's Fight: A Roundup.

Our favorite Canadian writer Mark Steyn has a great piece on Terri Schiavo (via Michelle Malkin):

I'm neither a Floridian nor a lawyer, and, for all I know, it may be legal under Florida law for the state to order her to be starved to death. But it is still wrong.
This is not a criminal, not a murderer, not a person whose life should be in the gift of the state. So I find it repulsive, and indeed decadent, to have her continued existence framed in terms of ''plaintiffs'' and ''petitions'' and ''en banc review'' and ''de novo'' and all the other legalese....

There seems to be a genuine dispute about her condition -- between those on her husband's side, who say she has "no consciousness," and those on her parents' side, who say she is capable of basic, childlike reactions. If the latter are correct, ending her life is an act of murder. If the former are correct, what difference does it make? If she feels nothing -- if there's no there there -- she has no misery to be put out of. That being so, why not err in favor of the non-irreversible option?

The here's-your-shroud-and-what's-your-hurry crowd say, ah, yes, but you uptight conservatives are always boring on about the sanctity of marriage, and this is what her husband wants, and he's legally the next of kin.

Michael Schiavo is living in a common-law relationship with another woman, by whom he has fathered children.

...if I take on a new wife (in all but name) and make a new family, I would think it not unreasonable to forfeit any right of life or death over my previous wife.

Michael Schiavo took a vow to be faithful in sickness and in health, forsaking all others till death do them part. He's forsaken his wife and been unfaithful to her: She is, de facto, his ex-wife, yet, de jure, he appears to have the right to order her execution.

PoliPundit notes these comments from Fox News This Morning:

“Terri has been without food or water for nine days now, and she’s still fighting for life.
“Terri is not giving in or surrendering, she is fighting to stay alive.

“This is not what a person does who wants to die, this is what a person does who wants to live.”

The evangelical outpost says the Schiavo situation underscores the absurdity of marriage laws in this country:

The locus of this tragedy is Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo. Although he is still married to Terri, he is currently cohabitating with Jodi Centonze, a woman with whom he shares two children. Under Florida state law, if Michael attempted to marry Jodi while Terri is still living and their marriage remains undissolved, his action would be considered “illegal, bigamous, and void from its inception.” In fact, it is likely that if a marriage license were found showing that Michael and Jodi had secretly married, he would no longer be considered a suitable guardian for his invalid wife. Yet because Florida repealed common law marriage laws in 1968, he can live like a bigamist without having to suffer the legal consequences.

Florida is also a "no fault" divorce state, which means that a history of infidelity is of no concern to the courts. While adulterous conduct might be used in determining the "moral fitness" of a parent seeking custody, it apparently can’t be used as evidence of lack of “moral fitness” to be a husband. Even though he has committed adultery, sired illegitimate children, and openly shares Terri’s marriage bed with another woman, he is still considered fit to undertake his role as a “husband.” By giving Michael Schiavo guardianship over his “wife”, the Florida courts have exposed the absurdity of marriage laws.

Just from a purely legal standpoint, it seems that Michael Schiavo has violated his marriage contract.

Make no mistake: Michael Schiavo had every right to move on with his life. It seems that he could have granted Terri's parents custody of Terri long ago and sought a legal end to his marriage contract with Terri.

But the media's portrayal of Michael as "the husband" (and therefore this is a "family matter" on which politicians are intruding) seems more than a little ridiculous. Michael Schiavo is the husband of someone else now; he has not been Terri's husband for more than a decade. Why was he legally able to decide her fate?

Then there's the parallel (or lack thereof) between snatching Elian Gonzalez and snatching Terri Schiavo (via Professor Bainbridge):

The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts over someone who couldn't speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez.

In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted the federal government to intervene in Elian Gonzalez's case went all the way, supporting a predawn armed federal raid on the morning before Easter to seize the 6-year-old boy despite a federal appeals court's refusal to order his surrender.

Both cases were marked with hypocrisy and political posturing galore. ...

... liberals have gotten off easy for some of the somersaulting arguments they have made on behalf of judicial independence and states' rights to justify their position that Terri Schiavo should not be saved. Many made the opposite arguments in the Elian Gonzalez case.

Michael Barone believes the fight to save Terri was not posturing or some kind of cynical ploy:

...the response of elected officials reflects one of the great strengths in our country: a confident belief in moral principles that stands in vivid contrast with what we see in much of Europe and in the supposedly sophisticated precincts of this country.

John Hinderaker of Powerline, writing in The Weekly Standard, asks "Fake but Accurate Again?" (via nicedoggie.net)

(1) The memo itself conveys no information about its source. (2) It is very poorly done, containing a number of typographical errors, failing to get the number of the Senate bill correct, and using points cribbed word-for-word from an advocacy group's website. (3) The politically controversial statements are out of place in a talking points memo, and seem, on the contrary, ideally framed to create talking points for the Democrats. (4) Somewhat bizarrely, after the contents of the memo had been reported, someone corrected those typographical errors--but only those errors that had been pointed out by ABC. (5) No one has reported seeing any Republican distributing the suspect memo; the only people confirmed to have passed out the memo were Democratic staffers.
A REASONABLE CONCLUSION would be that the "talking points memo" might be a fake, created by Democrats to cast aspersions on the motives of the Republican leadership.

UPDATE:

This piece from The Harvard Crimson (via Powerline) is definitely worth a read:

Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 March 2005 04:54 PM · Comments (6)

Amtrak and Liberalism.

The Volokh Conpiracy makes an interesting point on criticism from the left against President Bush's budget.

Essentially, the left has responded, on cue, to the President's budget, which cuts certain programs and freezes funding for others, by proclaiming Bush is out to get the poor, that he is "gutting" essential programs and so forth.

One program the President targeted was Amtrak, which caused much gnashing of teeth from liberals.

This, to David Bernstein, shows an

...inability to distinguish between government spending that actually serves liberalism's purported goals, and wasteful government boondoggles that receive reflexive support because they exist outside the market is an endemic problem that modern liberalism has yet to adequately address.

Good point. Some Republicans and conservatives sometimes do this, too, but liberals are all too eager to jump on any slowdown in entitlement growth as a "cut," and any actual cut as some kind of sinister and coldhearted act. Democrats have been complaining about deficits for the past couple of years, but when pressed on which programs they would trim from the budget, they divert attention to tax cuts (although tax relief often generates more government revenues).

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 March 2005 04:08 PM · Comments (0)

Testing The Limits Of "The Blueprint."

In recent weeks, the world has seen a subtle domino effect of pro-democracy demonstrations, some more meaningful than others.

Heartened by the march of freedom around the world, dissidents living under fear societies are now asserting themselves. When opposition groups are supported by the international community, particularly the American president and his administration, there is very little (short of physical brutalization of the opposition) that an unrepresentative government can do to halt the inertia of democracy.

Click for larger map (a sizeable .pdf):

There is an arc of tyranny spanning across much of the globe, and notwithstanding the amazing progress of freedom over the past few decades, the most important work remains ahead of us. Freedom House explains (.pdf):

At mid-century, there were 22 democracies accounting for 31 percent of the world population and a further 21 states with restricted democratic practices, accounting for 11.9 percent of the globe’s population.
By the close of our century liberal and electoral democracies clearly predominate, and have expanded significantly in the Third Wave, which has brought democracy to much of the post-Communist world and to Latin America and parts of Asia and Africa. Electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and constitute 62.5 percent of the world’s population.

The progress over the past few decades has been stunning, there is still much work that remains. But, as President Bush noted in his Second Inaugural Address:

We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.

The idea that the arc of tyranny is dangerous to world stability and therefore must receive a sturdy shake-up, an injection of liberty, from the United States, has transformed American foreign policy from one of strict adherence to realpolitik and stability for its own sake, to a more moral, long-term outlook. In the short run, America can buy off dictators to support our geostrategic aims, but that kind of policy leads to dependence and resentment over the long run, breeding extremism and hostility toward the U.S.

The Bush Doctrine, then, transformed long-standing American foreign policy operations. America is now betting on democracy as the cure for what ails the arc of tyranny.

As President Bush continues his drive for democracy all over the globe, critics of that policy believe that a potential side-effect of free elections is a democratically-elected extremist government, populated by America-hating fundamentalists and jihadis. The United States, then, would have created a monster. A legitimate government, of the people, which promptly diverts the full resources of the state to sponsor terrorism, or perhaps even institutes Shar'ia law, would be a nightmare for America and a significant setback to the advance of freedom around the world.

In Lebanon, for example, the American left quickly declared that, if Syria leaves Lebanon, Hizbollah would fill that power vacuum and make things far worse for the United States than the status quo.

"Way to go, Smirky McChimpHitler, you idiot..." was the attitude of pundits like Molly Ivins and Juan Cole on the day of Hizbollah's sizeable rally in Beirut.

Fortunately for lovers of freedom, the few hundred thousand strong Hizbollah rally in Beirut was dwarfed by well over a million of liberty-loving Lebanese just days later.

For the American left, which is now almost utterly devoid of any kind of moral clarity or idealism, bad news and setbacks in countries struggling for freedom prove their point that the "neocons" are a bunch of lunatics; good news in places like Lebanon might mean that Bush was right all along on that whole "spread of liberty" thing. Many of today's left-wing intellectuals seem pathologically reluctant to accept that the world can change for the better because of American words and actions; freedom spreading in the Middle East and elsewhere under (or, even worse, BECAUSE OF) a Republican president does not compute.

Publius Pundit offers some keen analysis on just how difficult democracy (a process, not an event) will be in Egypt, a nation percolating with fundamentalism, much of which is incited by the official media of the Mubarak regime (as we've noted here).

Publius Pundit's Kirk H. Sowell explains the stakes in Egypt:

...if there is a free election and the Muslim Brotherhood does win, the world could face its first democratically-elected terroristic government - since 1933.

Much of the spread of democracy depends upon a sort of still-being-drawn "blueprint." This "blueprint," which we've commented on here, here, here, and here, is not one-size-fits-all, nor is it codified. Right now, "the blueprint" is in BETA testing; the bugs are still being worked out.

But some of "the blueprint" is somewhat intuitive:

1. There must be a peaceful opposition force committed to the cause of free and fair elections.

The opposition cannot simply want to take power for themselves under the same rules, they must be committed to structural reform.

2. The opposition must effectively brand and market its cause to the people.

At demonstrations, it is a good idea to have a unified color and/or slogan, as well as attractive women, kids, and families on display for the international media.

3. The international community must support, if only rhetorically, the cause of the opposition.

Gene Sharp, in "Bringing Down a Dictator," describes more of "the blueprint," and factors that increase success:

* The clear determination of the issues and the selection of achievable objectives and careful assessment of the conflict situation, including the strengths and weaknesses of the two sides and then the dependencies between the two sides;
* Wise planning of how the non-violent is to be conducted; that is, the development of a realistic strategy for the conflict in the face of the opponents — people also talk about strategy, but not everybody who does knows much about it.

* Building on the strengths of the non-violent group in focusing their action on the weaknesses of the opponents, which are really there, believe it or not, especially relating the dependence of the opponents on the non-violent group, which is at present makes the opponent subject to the influence of non-cooperation.

* Aggravating pre-existing weaknesses of the opposing group, because they're never as strong as they tell you they are;

* Ability and willingness of the non-violent group to act in a disciplined way and to apply the planned strategy despite the opponent's repression, which among other things means non-violent discipline, but not passivity, discipline in continuing resistance.

* And, lastly, the action in accordance with the knowledge of how non-violent struggle operates and what makes it succeed and fail, and there are others. But probably the most difficult of these factors for groups to achieve is the development of a wise strategy for the struggle.

"The blueprint" worked wonders in Ukraine last year, following a rigged election in which the old, corrupt regime remained in power at the expense of reform-minded candidate Viktor Yushchenko.

Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's new Prime Minister believes "the blueprint" is worth giving a shot in other countries. In a recent interview, she told Ukrainian and Georgian journalists:

I am sure that your president and our president will share the wonderful experience of our revolutions with other nations that would also like to live in freedom.

Another challenge to "the blueprint" could come in places like Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Bahrain, Iran, and elsewhere.

The challenges include everything from a lack of international media attention, to a disorganized opposition, to the brutality of the regimes. Some freedom-loving groups may not be fully aware of the blueprint or have the resources to implement it. Some opposition groups, such as Hizbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, may not really desire freedom at all.

The United States may not yet have the resources to devote even adequate rhetorical assistance, let alone "blueprint" training, to dozens of democratic movements in diverse cultures, all around the world, simultaneously.

Democracy requires the respect for the rule of law and a long-term commitment to fairness and reform; this "fourth wave" of democratization we're seeing has the potential to usher in the dismantling of the arc of tyranny, leading to a higher level of global peace and prosperity than ever imagined. As key cogs in that purple arc, such as Iraq, emerge into the light of free markets and free people, neighboring populations will assuredly demand and assert liberty for themselves.

But we must also be aware that there will be setbacks along the way, and one major setback has the potential to derail the string of ongoing successes. Keeping the inertia of democracy going is the responsibility of free nations everywhere.

WILLisms.com will continue to follow "the blueprint" where and when we see it, so stay tuned.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 March 2005 12:10 PM · Comments (2)

Happy Easter.

HE IS RISEN
-Matthew 28:6

Happy Easter, from WILLisms.com.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 March 2005 06:15 AM · Comments (2)

Manufactured Polling Outcomes.

WILLisms.com has commented quite a bit on polling over the past couple of months.

One common thread in much of our analysis is the existence of push-polling and other manipulative forms of opinion polls that guarantee outcomes. There are many ways, some more under-the-radar than others, to rig a poll.

Push polls are simply polls with extremely leading and biased questions, usually with innuendoes. In the Social Security game, offering a litany of (mostly misleading) negative information about how hard reform would be an example of push polling. This technique has obvious potential to engineer certain opinion outcomes, and because few people understand how polling really works, few people are willing to stand up and challenge the "will of the people," these "oracles of truth."

Generally the term "push poll" is reserved for the most egregious kinds of rumormongering, even fraud, but it also seems perfectly applicable to some of the polling commissioned by the elite media in recent months. The media may take offense to that, but that's tough for them. They deserve to be called out for some of this recent garbage they have been passing off as "public opinion polling."

But push-polls are just one form of polling that ought to be discarded out of hand. Polls that sample too many or too few women, union members, Democrats, minorities, rich people, urbanites, young people, or other demographic groups can lead to wild divergence from the real collective opinion of the public. For example, if union members make up 15% of the population in a Congressional district, but the poll sample is 40% union, the results are obviously going to be incorrect. This will not necessarily show up in the poll's headline, either.

Polling is crack cocaine to the media; they are willing to pay just about anything for it, because consumers of news simply cannot get enough of them. Polling, however, is notoriously bad at measuring overall levels of public opinion; it is even worse at predicting close election outcomes. Polls are far better at measuring differences and similarities between and among demographic groups. When the media are exposed for their bad, biased polling, they almost always respond with some form of:

"...it's just a poll. Are you calling the opinions of the American people biased?"

And they normally get away with it.

Organizations, even "non-partisan, non-profit" ones, engage in shameful polling practices, as well.

We've noted AARP's manipulative polling (also here).

AARP taught allied organization Rock the Vote a thing or two about manipulative push-polling, as well.

Recently, we've tried to unlock the mysteries of Social Security polling.

Polls are used all the time by the elite media to frame their stories. They often manufacture polls, quite overtly, to fit their existing narratives.

John Hawkins explains how the latest round of manufactured polls, used by the elite media to prove its narrative that Americans are angry that Bush intervened in the Terri Schiavo situation, are bunk (via PoliPundit):

...if you keep reading you find out the real cause of the dip:
"The poll also found an increased number of Democrats. In this survey, 37% said they were Democrats and 32% said they were Republicans. Last week, 32% said they were Democrats and 35% said they were Republicans."

So Bush's numbers dropped 7% in a week. However, there were 5% more Democrats polled and 3% less Republicans. Had they used the same percentages as the week before, it's entirely possible Bush's polling numbers would have gone up just a bit.

This happened quite a bit during the months prior to the 2004 election. The party ID samples would fluctuate wildly, week-by-week. They almost always overestimated the numbers of Democrats in the sample. At one point, moveon.org ran a full-page ad (it's a .pdf) in the New York Times complaining that Gallup was oversampling Republicans; Gallup promptly adjusted its poll samples to include more Democrats. Polling pundits like Ruy Teixeira, of Emerging Democratic Majority infamy, called moveon.org's ad "rock-solid."

Turns out, Gallup, and every other polling institution that sampled more Democrats than Republicans, were wrong; the only poll that matters, the one in November, proved that point. Pollsters in 2004 were so surprised by the election outcome that it seems like they must have missed the memo on that whole GOP realignment thing.

When it comes right down to it, we live in a poll-driven era, but even many professional politicians do not understand how polls work. Many Congressional Republicans, for example, buying into the poor polling on Social Security, fear for their political lives.

One other important aspect of polling is that it tends to have an echo effect, meaning the public wants to be part of the mainstream, part of the winning team, part of the bandwagon. Thus, if a candidate "surges" in the polls in the final days before an election, simply because pollsters adjusted party sampling ratios, the (small number of) remaining undecided voters may actually hop on board the cool-kid bandwagon. The same thing goes for individual issues in non-election years, which is what makes some of the Social Security polling so frustrating.

What to take from all of this:

1. Polling in the media today is scandalous. Yes, scandalous. But very few are willing to call it such.

2. Never accept a poll's headline at face-value. If a poll does not list how many Republicans and Democrats it sampled, throw it out.

3. Throw out polls with loaded questions. Throw out polls with a single night of surveying. Throw out polls with samples under 600 people.

4. Understand that the media will continue to run biased polls, but it is the duty of the blogosphere to call out poor polls until the media collectively shapes up its act.

5. Included in any poll really needs to be a full disclosure of question wording, question order, demographic samples, and other pertinent information. Without all that, a poll is meaningless.

Linked with the Traffic Jam.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 March 2005 05:36 AM · Comments (2)

China Responds To Green People Power.

The Chinese view of today's events in Taiwan is humorous.

FIRST

The Chinese have determined that the demonstrations are the work of a handful of extremists, not the will of the majority of Taiwanese. They have also tried to give the Taiwanese leadership, which took an active part in the demonstrations, a way out:

We noticed some political figures of Taiwan authorities openly instigated and directly participated in the so-called 'March 26 march'. We have a question to ask: in this crucial junction of cross-Strait relations, what will they do with the fundamental well-being of Taiwan compatriots and to where willlead the cross-Strait relations? Not long ago, they solemnly made 'pledges' and 'statements' on developing cross-Strait relations. Are these only empty words again?"
....

We are confident the Taiwan compatriots will ultimately see clearly the right and the wrong and refuse to be cheated and misguided by 'Taiwan independence' secessionist forces.We are confident they will objectively and rationally take the principle of the Anti-Secession Law and work with compatriots on the motherland to oppose and check 'Taiwan independence' secessionist activities and push cross-Strait relations towards peace and stability.

And they may be correct, but that is extremely unlikely. While marginal majorities of Taiwanese do prefer outright independence, the Taiwanese also consider themselves part of the race and culture as those on the mainland. They are blood brothers and sisters, divided by ideology.

Also, while most Taiwanese would prefer independence to the extent that it would mean a formal recognition of the prosperity and freedom they have enjoyed over the past half-century plus, all Taiwanese would prefer to live. No Taiwanese citizen wants to see the island destroyed by Chinese military strikes.

Thus, public opinion in Taiwan is somewhat mixed.

But the rallies today were not about separation. They were not about formal independence. They were about sending a signal to China that Taiwan is unified behind maintaining their freedoms.

And they were most definitely not the work of "secessionist forces" or other fringe groups; they represent the mainstream of political thought in Taiwan. The leadership of Taiwan, including President Chen himself, joined the protest. Indeed, he promoted it in advance.

Let's look at the Freedom House ratings (.pdf format):

The scale runs from one to seven, with one being the most free and seven being not free.

Taiwan is rated "free," with a score of 2 for political rights, and a score of 1 for civil liberties.

China, meanwhile, is rated "not free," with a score of 7 for political rights, and a score of 6 for civil liberties.

How about Hong Kong and Tibet (also a .pdf)?

Hong Kong, under Chinese rule, has a score of 5 for political rights and 2 for civil liberties, giving it a classification of "partly free."

Tibet is rated 7 and 7, entirely not free (although it was not exactly a bastion of liberty before Chinese domination).

Taiwan doesn't want to become Hong Kong, or Tibet. It wants China to become Taiwan at best, or keep the status quo (two separate nations) at worst. Taiwan wants the free-enterprise system to flourish on the mainland. It wants political and civil rights to be respected. It wants freedom of expression, of religion, of transit. One thing Taiwan definitely does not want: to go from free to not free.

An important angle to remember here, as well:

Taiwanese capital has been funding much of China's recent economic explosion. The two countries have profound mutual interests; neither truly wants a war over this. Taiwan's "326" rally was in response to Chinese provokation, not the other way around.

SECOND-

The Chinese are pretending (or perhaps they actually believe) that the will of the international community is behind them:

The law has won widespread acknowledgment of the international community and sons and daughters of the Chinese nation both at home and abroad, it says.

Well, that's one way of looking at it. But it's also absurd and divorced from reality. To the extent that China's anti-secession law was acknowledged by the international community, it was scolded as unnecessarily bellicose:

...the United States and others have expressed concerns that Beijing may use the law to justify an attack on the island.
European Union officials have cited the law as the reason the European Union backed away from a pledge to lift an arms embargo against Beijing, which was first imposed after the bloody crushing of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The bottom line is that Taiwan must remain free. China and Taiwan may or may not become a single, unified nation at some point in the future, but unification must not mean unwanted Chinese subjugation of Taiwan, militarily, or otherwise. The international community must not allow the Chinese to bully the Taiwanese into submission.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 March 2005 03:33 PM · Comments (3)

Following "The Blueprint" In Taiwan.

Last week, China passed "anti-secession" legislation in order to send Taiwan a signal:

WE OWN YOU.

Essentially, the Chinese law declares that if Taiwan asserts its independence formally, China reserves the right to launch military strikes against the island.

In response, the Taiwanese have decided to display their unity behind the values they have been living for decades now; Taiwan is sending a message back to China:

NO, YOU DON'T.

Some reports put the pro-democracy crowds at more than one million strong, while others claim smaller numbers.

One thing that is interesting to note is that the Taiwanese seem to be following "the blueprint" (which must mean that rascal Karl Rove is involved somehow). They are speaking not only to China, but also to the free world, the international community, to America:

And the cameras always seem to find the babes at these things:

[This one was from a couple days ago, announcing today's demonstration.]

This picture has particular significance:

It is vaguely reminiscent of Tienanmen Square, yet also looks like the "women-passing-flowers-to-military" scenario we've seen in other countries.

This demonstration is about a lot of things, primarily the idea that free people do not willingly acquiesce in reversal of long-held rights. Free people do not go along so cordially with tyranny:

The Taiwanese seem completely familiar with "the blueprint." They have the color, green. They have the slogans down. They have the babes. They have the cute kids. They have the street theater. They have the branding. They have the marketing. They have the moral cause.

How could they lose?

Despite what the Chinese bluster on about, Taiwan's freedom and independence will not lead to instability. China's sabre-rattling will.

Pubius Pundit has a great roundup of events in Taiwan, including more great pictures.

UPDATE:

Here is a flashback editorial from John Bolton on the subject of Taiwan, from March of 2000:

...it is important for Congress to send Beijing a clear signal that congressional support for Taiwan remains undiminished.
Supporting Taiwan's UN representation campaign is an excellent way to do so....

...the international status of our long-term ally Taiwan definitely qualifies for priority treatment.

UPDATE 2:

You MUST check out this awesome 360 degree panorama of the protests in Taiwan.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 March 2005 11:34 AM · Comments (7)

Dehydration.

She's almost gone. Terri's father:

Terri is weakening. She's down to her last hours.

The Associated Press has this graphic of what happens during dehydration:

Meanwhile, Powerline has this picture:

How can people be so cruel, so crass?

It's dispicable.

Two girls and a little boy getting arrested for trying to bring Terri water:

Posted by Will Franklin · 25 March 2005 10:02 PM · Comments (14)

The Mysteries Of Social Security Polling.

One liberal talking point on Social Security is that "the more people know about Social Security reform, the more they oppose it." This is actually code for "the more the pollsters push people against Social Security reform, the more the people will oppose it."

Imagine knowing almost nothing about Social Security reform but someone conducting a public opinion poll on the matter asks you about it after running down the typical list of (mostly misleading) criticisms of reform.

The most dangerous omission from most Social Security polling questions today is the fact that guaranteed benefits do not exist. Without reform, those so-called guaranteed benefits are guaranteed to see a cut of between 1/4 and 1/3, guaranteed.

Most polling questions offer a dichotomous choice between "guaranteed benefits" (if we do nothing) and "less guaranteed money" (under reform). If pollsters quit telling people that if we do nothing these "guaranteed benefits" would remain unchanged, and instead started informing people on the facts, it is clear the public might react differently.

Another problem with most Social Security polling today is the idea that reform is somehow going to cost all of this money to accomplish. Pollsters ask questions such as this recent one from Time magazine:

Under the Bush plan, the federal government would have to borrow between one trillion and two trillion dollars or more over the next 10 years or so to provide Social Security to retirees in order to make up for the money going into the personal investment accounts. The money would be paid back later, over time. Would you now favor or oppose allowing some Social Security money to be invested in personal accounts and reducing benefits if the government had to borrow up to two trillion dollars in the next 10 years to pay for the new plan?

When asked the above question, only about a quarter of respondents support reform. If pollsters would inform people of this information (that the "transition costs" are really not new costs at all, just a recognition of existing costs, that these costs would be like paying off the mortgage earlier, that doing it this way would actually save trillions over the long-term, and that the benefits would vastly outweigh the negatives of doing nothing), support for short-term borrowing to cover the transition from a demographic pyramid scheme (pay-as-you-go) to a self-sustaining and perpetually-solvent funding system would rise dramatically.

David Hill, writing in The Hill newspaper (via Social Security Choice) explains how the polls will shift:

Today, voters know so little about the details of Social Security and its reform that they will indeed respond to potential reforms in a superficial, partisan manner. Democrats who think Bush is an illegitimate president and opposed his Iraq war will reflexively oppose anything else Bush is behind, including changes in Social Security....
Today’s cursory polling on Social Security underestimates the shift that’s coming toward support for personal accounts.