tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-105297532024-03-23T20:00:39.207+02:00the sovereign state"Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man." -Walter E. WilliamsMSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.comBlogger264125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-55429649571622720622015-12-21T00:38:00.001+02:002015-12-21T00:38:51.526+02:00How did that happen?It's hard enough as it is to secure rape convictions but you'd hope it wouldn't be much of a feat when the defendant's only defense is that he fell and landed <i>in </i>her:<br />
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A Saudi millionaire has been cleared of raping a teenager after claiming he might have accidentally penetrated the 18-year-old when he tripped and fell on her.<br />Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was accused of forcing himself on the girl as she slept off a night of drinking on the sofa of his Maida Vale flat.<br />He had already had sex with her 24-year-old friend and said his penis might have been poking out of his underwear after that sexual encounter when he tripped on the 18-year-old<br />Abdulaziz said he had accidentally fallen on the youngster as she tried to seduce him, and that was how traces of his DNA came to be in her vagina. (<a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/millionaire-businessman-cleared-raping-teenager-7018414">Mirror</a>)</blockquote>
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Now, this doesn't necessarily mean the jury believed him over her, but merely saw that this story constituted "reasonable doubt". Of course, someone obviously forgot to explain the meaning of "reasonable" to the jury. The standard itself ("guilty beyond reasonable doubt") is perfectly understandable, but it requires the jury to consist of reasonable individuals as well, and we know from the O.J. Simpson & Casey Anthony cases that a randomly drawn jury, even after accounting for "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peremptory_challenge">strikes</a>" (although I'm not sure if the British have these), can end up consisting of morons or simply weak-willed invididuals who are susceptible to the manipulations of a single strong-willed individual.<br />
This is NOT a call for lowering the standard of evidence. Some American colleges are setting up Mickey Mouse courts to try serious offenses such as rape, using a much lower standard of evidence ("preponderance of the evidence"), while it shouldn't be their job to investigate rape claims in the first place; that job belongs to the police and prosecutors. Serious offenses require serious standards of evidence. It's just that people may fail that standard sometimes. This case <i>clearly </i>should have resulted in a conviction.MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-62681760519301986542015-05-09T21:55:00.000+03:002015-11-07T01:21:22.216+02:00Victory for some...<div style="text-align: justify;">
For the Soviet Union the Second World War ended 70 years ago. For millions in Eastern Europe, it was the beginning of another occupation by an utterly fascist system, an occupation that would last around 45 years. For German women it was the beginning of a massive rape wave, perhaps the biggest in human history, with Russian troops defiling any woman they could find. Women as old as 80 years and girls as young as 8 years were raped. Millions were raped, and hundreds of thousands died as a result. There were roughly 200 000 victims of rape in Berlin alone. These weren't merely reprisals for all the horrors that Nazis had inflicted on Soviet citizens; on their way toward Berlin, the Russians raped Belarusians, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and even Russians liberated from labor camps and wives of German communists. This was officially encouraged, even if nominally banned. The higher-ups encouraged the mass rapes as a means to terrorize local populations and to reward Soviet soldiers. At the end of the day Soviet authorities, kinda like the modern Finnish justice system, did not consider rape a serious offense. Hitler himself had contributed greatly to the peril of German women (and civilians in general) by preventing the evacuation of German civilians in places such as East Prussia, where the Russians really went cavemen on the local population.</div>
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Unlike Germany, Russia, as a victor, has been unwilling to learn from history even though their current problems with their "near abroad" and with NATO expansion have everything to do with Soviet/Russian history of repression. Poland and the Baltic states are now NATO members because of their repression under Russian rule. World War II began with a <i>joint </i>Nazi-Soviet attack on Poland. Tens of thousands of important Poles were massacred by the Soviets during this first occupation period. Later, as the Germans were being pushed back, Stalin couldn't have cared less about liberating anyone; Poland was merely another territory to conquer and hold, which is why he prevented the United States from aiding Polish partisans (the Home Army) in their desperate struggle against Germany. Today's Ukraine is divided over Russia because Stalin first starved the Ukrainian population to death (Holodomor), then resettled the country with Russians. (Mistakes such as this and the purges almost cost the Soviets the war.) The entire population of Crimea was deported and replaced with Russians. After the war Stalin downplayed the importance of the Holocaust because the plight of the Jewish people didn't fit the general history of the "Great Patriotic War", and because so many Soviet citizens (including Ukrainians and non-Soviet Poles) had actively participated in the genocide.</div>
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Of course, there is little question the Nazis were worse. Had the Nazis won the war, Poland, for example, would have been colonized and its Polish population either exterminated or enslaved (and then exterminated), and its cities razed to the ground. As <i>Bloodlands </i>makes clear, when it comes to the systematic murder of innocent men, women and children, Nazis easily outperformed the Soviet Union. As far as the Nazis were concerned, murder was the objective. In the Soviet Union murder was a means to an end. Soviets killed Soviets; Germans killed non-Germans. Soviets killed before the war, Germans during the war. Stalin may have gotten a head start with the mass killings, but once the Nazis crossed the Molotov-Ribbentrop line in 1941, they more than made up for it, first by having the Einsatzgruppen shoot any Jews they could find, and then, as the war went on, by building gas chambers with which they could murder on an industrial scale. During the war, the Nazis perfected a psychopath-run (hence the "<i>banality </i>of evil") genocide machine, which enabled them to murder so many Jews in such a short time in such a difficult environment.</div>
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Below are several bits from <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471">Bloodlands</a></i>:<br />
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"The men of the Dirlewanger Brigade burned down three hospitals with patients inside. At one hospital, wounded Germans who were being treated by Polish doctors and nurses asked that no harm come to the Poles. This was not to be. The men of the Dirlewanger Brigade killed the Polish wounded. They brought the nurses back to camp that evening, as was the custom: each night selected women would be whipped by officers and then gang-raped before being murdered. This evening was unusual even by those standards. To the accompaniment of flute music, the men raised a gallows, and then hanged the doctors and the naked nurses."</div>
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"...in roundups that took several days, the Germans and the Jewish police would blockade particular blocks or particular houses, and force their inhabitants to go to a collection point. Germans shot small children, pregnant women, and the handicapped or elderly on the spot. In larger towns and cities where more than one roundup was necessary, these measures were repated with increasing violence. The Germans were aiming for daily quotas to fill trains, and would sometimes pass on quotas to the Jewish police who were responsible (at the risk of their own position and thus lives) for filling them."</div>
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"In October 1941, Mahileu became the first substantial city in occupied Soviet Belarus where almost all Jews were killed. A German (Austrian) policeman wrote to his wife of his feelings and experiences shooting the city's Jews in the first days of the month. 'During the first try, my hand trembled a bit as I shot, but one gets used to it. By the tenth try I aimed calmly and shot surely at the many women, children, and infants. I kept in mind that I have two infants at home, whom these hordes would treat just the same, if not ten times worse. The death that we gave them was a beautiful quick death, compared to the hellish torments of thousands and thousands in the jails of the GPU. Infants flew in great arcs through the air, and we shot them to pieces in flight, before their bodies fell into the pit and into the water.'"</div>
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"Having surrendered their valuables and documents, people were forced to strip naked. Then they were driven by threats or by shots fired overhead, in groups of about ten, to the edge of a ravine known as Babi Yar. Many of them were beaten: Pronicheva remembered that people 'were already bloody as they went to be shot.' They had to lie down on their stomachs on the corpses already beneath them, and wait for the shots to come from above and behind. Then would come the next group. Jews came and died for thirty-six hours. (...) One naked mother spent what she must have known were her last few seconds of life breastfeeding her baby. When the baby was thrown alive into the ravine, she jumped after it, and in that way found her death. Only there in the ditch were these people reduced to nothing, or to their number, which was 33,761."</blockquote>
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"Jewish women suffered in particular ways. Despite regulations against "racial defilement," some Germans quickly developed a taste for rape as prelude to murder. At least once Germans carried out a "beauty contest" of Jewish women, taking them to the cemetery, forcing them to strip naked, and then killing them. In the ghetto, German soldiers would force Jewish girls to dance naked at night; in the morning only the girls' corpses remained. Perla Aginskaia recalled what she saw in a dark apartment in the Minsk ghetto one evening in autumn 1941: 'a little room, a table, a bed. Blood was streaming down the girl's body from deep, blackish wounds in her chest. It was quite clear that the girl had been raped and killed. There were gunshot wounds around her genitals.'" </blockquote>
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The Nazis also wiped out entire villages in counter-productive anti-partisan reprisals: for every German killed, hundreds of innocent civilians were murdered. Such operations took place not only in the East but in Western Europe as well. In the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, a Waffen-SS company massacred 600 civilians by a mistake (in the sense that they intended to massacre the inhabitants of another village). The men were separated from the rest, shot and then burned (while still alive). The women and children were taken to a church which was then set on fire. Those trying to escape were shot with machineguns. A baby was crucified.</div>
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So, if anything good came out of World War II, it was the physical extermination of what Hitler called the "good ones" of the Germanic race; the barbaric, racist, warmongering Germans with psychopathic and sadistic tendencies.</div>
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But in the very long run, Communism outperformed Nazism: the big difference between Nazism and Communism was their longevity. Nazis fell far short of their extermination targets due to the quick self-implosion of the <i>Herrenvolk.</i> Communism was much more long-lived and thus managed to amass a higher body count.</div>
<br />MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-32832804539695795892015-02-23T22:07:00.001+02:002015-02-23T22:07:21.429+02:00One leader<div style="text-align: justify;">
Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine many have been drawing parallels between the prelude to WW2 and the current Russian-driven crisis. What's really funny is how oblivious the Russians themselves are to these parallels (even while desperately trying to draw their own), making a whole bunch of historical ironies possible. Useful idiots who consider themselves anti-fascists were <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-gather-moscow-protest-fascist-coup-kiev-125253591.html">rallying</a> behind Vladimir Putin in Moscow a few days ago with banners saying <i>Putin, People, Russia</i>. You can't make this stuff up: they're actually using one of the best-known Nazi slogans (<i>ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer</i>) to rally against fascism (or, rather, "fascism"). A common misconception in Russia is that "fascists" staged a coup in Kiev and that these "fascists" are supported by the West. Now, in Russia the word "fascist" doesn't quite mean what it does in the rest of the world. Communists (both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere) used to call anyone who disagreed with them a fascist, kinda like some modern feminists call anyone who disagrees with them a misogynist. That meaning of the word seems to have survived to this day and thus anyone who disagrees with Kremlin is automatically branded a fascist. The irony here is of course that Putin himself has been pursuing fascist policies for years now, concentrating more and more power into his own hands. There's nothing out of the ordinary about that really, not in Russia; the Soviet Union was one of the best examples of fascism taken to its extreme. </div>
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Everyone in the West of course knows all this. But Russians don't, and with the Russian media increasingly in the hands of Kremlin, they'll become even more ill-equipped to make informed decisions, believing the West is out to get them just for the fun of it.</div>
MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-68673645314414857872014-02-24T23:36:00.001+02:002014-02-24T23:53:34.167+02:00The ramblings of a lunaticFinished reading <i>Mein Kampf</i> (an English translation of it to be exact, not the one filled with notes). There's been a lot of debate among historians as to whether Hitler's policies once he became chancellor followed a careful plan or whether those policies (such as the Holocaust) emerged more spontaneously, as a reaction to changing circumstances. Some Nazi sympathizers even claim Hitler had no choice but to do what he did because of the hostility of his foreign adversaries. To me it's quite clear that everything that happened was laid out in detail in this book, written in the mid 1920s, and that no one in Germany or abroad could honestly claim they did now know what Hitler's intentions were.<p>
Reading the book, it's obvious Hitler is bored by economics. He rants a lot about Marxism but very little about its economic implications. He sympathizes with workers and blames the bourgeoisie (and Jews) for the rise of Marxism among the working class. In his views, employers should consider the welfare of the community first and avoid excess discrepancies in wage rates. Hitler's views on capital and stock markets aren't too different from those advocated by the contemporary utopian-fascist <i>Zeitgeist</i> movement. In Hitler's mind, the ills of both Capitalism and Communism are fused together in the "International Jew" who seeks to destroy national economies through the stock market, thus forging some kind of a "Eternal Jewish Empire". To prevent that, national economies such as that of Germany must be liberated from "interest slavery" and the machinations of the stock market. Throughout the book, Marxism is practically considered synonymous with the Jew. <p>
Hitler does not explicitly state any plan to exterminate the Jewish people; but then again he didn't mention anything about that even as the Holocaust was under way. Still, it's quite obvious Hitler harbored such plans early on. He believes Jews would not be content with a state in Palestine because of their supposedly international character; such a state would merely function as a base of operations for the Jews' global quest to destroy all non-Jewish nation states. Regrettably, Hitler doesn't go into detail about the roots of his antisemitism. In his childhood and teens, he was even sympathetic toward the Jewish people for all the persecutions that had taken place in the past. Then, in Vienna, Hitler seems to have been brainwashed by antisemitic literature such as Protocols and Henry Ford's (the American car industrialist) writings. Why he decided to believe such obvious nonsense remains a mystery but then again the vast majority of people on this planet believe in something stupid, be that gods, homeopathy, astrology, UFO landings or 9/11 conspiracies. In the past persecution of Jews has served the self-interests of the persecuting parties (such as the financial and religious interests of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VI_of_France">spendthrift</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_I_of_Castile">zealous</a> monarchs), but if Hitler had merely wanted to use Jews as scapegoats, he probably wouldn't have murdered millions of them in secret. Quite simply, Hitler was both an idiot and a racist.<p>
Hitler is more explicit about exterminating opposing political ideologies and their proponents, expressing regret at the missed opportunity at the end of the World War to exterminate Marxists. Hitler believes that any half-assed attempt to destroy a doctrine is bound to be counter-productive. Therefore, any attempt to destroy a doctrine must be thorough and persistent, but even then such an attempt is almost certain to fail unless combined with a "spiritual revolution" (e.g., National Socialism against Marxism): "Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain." He's also explicit about destroying parliamentarianism, even clearly stating the Nazis would participate in parliamentary institutions only to destroy such institutions for good. In this Gospel of Open and Explicit Intolerance, Hitler has, it seems, learned from the best:
<blockquote>"Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less willing to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas. It has recognized quite correctly that its power of resistance does not lie in its lesser or greater adaptation to the scientific findings of the moment, which in reality are always fluctuating, but rather in rigidly holding to dogmas once established, for it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith."</blockquote>
<blockquote> "The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine."</blockquote>
<blockquote>"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition."</blockquote>
<blockquote>"The individual may establish with pain today that with the appearance of Christianity the first spiritual terror entered into the far freer ancient world, but he will not be able to contest the fact that since then the world has been afflicted and dominated by this coercion, and that coercion is broken only by coercion."</blockquote>
What is also explicitly stated is the Nazi policy of <i>Lebensraum</i>, that, in order to survive, the German nation must extend its frontiers at the expense of Russia and other territories inhabited by Slavic peoples. He criticizes the Second Reich for adopting a policy of trade & overseas colonies (thus putting Germany on a collision course with the British Empire) rather than of eastward conquest. This perceived necessity of soil acquisition seems to be another result of Hitler's poor understanding of economics: he believes more in Malthusian alarmism than technological progress and trade. Hitler also mentions the necessity to enslave lower races, comparing that to the exploitation and domestication of animals. What later became known as <i>Generalplan Ost</i>, a plan to conquer, enslave and exterminate tens of millions of people in Eastern Europe, is the core Nazi foreign policy doctrine through which everything else is viewed. In order to execute the plan, however, Germany's western front, i.e., France, the "mortal enemy" of Germany, must first be secured militarily, preferably with the aid of the British Empire. Hitler doesn't believe Germany's issues with France can be resolved through defensive strategies but instead pushes for a "final active reckoning with France". The resulting "destruction of France" would merely be a means to enable eastward expansion, not an end in itself. (Hitler seems to consider himself a realist as he emphasizes that Germany should never bother with humanitarian affairs but instead pursue the national interest vigorously, but of course his ideas come off as utopian, reckless and idealistic: Bismarck would turn in his grave. Hitler is not completely paranoid about France though; many French politicians and military leaders were calling for Germany's partition.)<p>
Hitler is also, no surprise, extremely socially conservative. He sees women as passive beings whose job is to get married and start having children, he seems obsessed with STDs, prostitution and contraceptives, proposing early marriage as a solution. Also, like many conservative men, he drools over the idea of a teenage boy's well-trained body. Hitler makes numerous references to God, and believes his actions are guided by Fate/Providence, and sees many benefits in religions ("Precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude.") but doesn't come off as an adherent to any specific religious doctrine. He even employs God to support his racial views: if "defectives" are allowed to propagate, then in a few hundred years' time "you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty"; thus preventing these people from propagating would be "the most humane act of mankind". He also criticizes Jews on religious grounds, claiming theirs is not a religion at all: "The Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him (...) The Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world." Jesus is applauded for fighting the Jews' exploitation of religion for financial gain when he tosses them out of the Temple.<p>
In addition to Hitler's views on the Jewish people, his views on the First World War illuminate his selective reading of history. Like many in Germany at that time, Hitler believed the war was not lost on the battlefield, conveniently forgetting the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, the constant influx of fresh American troops & supplies, and the lack of resources at Germany's disposal. While he viewed the alliance with the Habsburgs with disgust, he perceived the war as inevitable and ultimately fought for German freedom and independence. The lost territories would be regained, along with other German-inhabited regions, in due time and not through peaceful negotiations: "We must clearly recognize the fact that the recovery of the lost territories is not won through solemn appeals to the Lord or through pious hopes in a League of Nations, but only by force of arms." Of course Chamberlain tried to spoil his fun by completely giving in to his outrageous, unreasonable demands. With the gift of hindsight, we know that Hitler would have none of it, for in his mind "Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany".<p>
The German people empowered Hitler with absolute authority to do away with democracy, institute racial laws, attack foreign countries and kill millions of people. They shouldn't have been surprised when bombs started falling on their cities.MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-55966595510984987042013-08-28T21:10:00.001+03:002013-08-28T21:23:16.714+03:00Syria, finallyIt seems that the good guys have finally decided to act against Syria despite protests from the likes of Russia. As <a href="http://m-sandt.blogspot.fi/2012/04/syria-whats-taking-so-long.html">I argued earlier</a>, non-action in the face of the likes of Bashar Assad would only make it easier for dictators to crush internal revolts in the future. The chemical attack on a residential neighborhood near Damascus was a direct result of earlier do-nothing behavior. The regime had already tried out chemical weapons several months ago on a smaller scale (and fired SCUD missiles into residential areas) just to see what the West would do. The West did nothing but slightly increased its rhetoric, so the regime decided to move it up a notch. (This should also remind us of the importance of American hegemony: without it Assad would have gone completely cavemen on his own people a long time ago with Russia nodding in approval.) The regime's timing could not have been more arrogant and bold: the attacks were carried out while UN inspectors were not many miles away. To anyone living in the West Assad's behavior may seem irrational, considering the international environment and Obama's threats about crossing the "red line", but it's a fact that Middle Eastern dictators have had problems in the past understanding the civil, diplomatic threats that Western leaders issue. Even Saddam Hussein believed, to the very last second, both in 1991 and 2003, that the United States would not invade.<p>
For the West, there should be no turning back now. If the regime is left unpunished, Assad will become even more ruthless. The reverberations of Western inaction would be felt elsewhere too: America's enemies are surely paying attention. Obama may be extremely reluctant to act but even he should understand that it never had to come to this: had he been more decisive before, all this could have been avoided. But Obama, with his doctrine of <i>realpolitik</i>, was caught completely off guard by the Arab revolts that beautifully demonstrated the power of ideas, ideas that Obama's predecessor believed were not as alien to the ordinary Arab as was commonly and fashionably thought. America can now demonstrate that it stands behind those ideas by putting its money where its mouth is instead of being obsessed with maintaining the status quo, i.e., the one where ruthless dictators are kept in power for the sake of stability, breeding resentment toward America among the common folks.<p>
To be sure, there are no easy solutions to the situation in Syria or the Greater Middle East in general. Arming moderate forces (probably easier said than done) within the opposition should alleviate the problem America faces with respect to Islamic rebels. Keeping boots off the ground seems like a no-brainer. As in Libya, air strikes and cruise missiles may be an effective and cheap solution (it should be noted that the West may wish for a regime change but doesn't seem eager to set that as an objective), contributing virtually nothing to America's long-term budget problems (which result from entitlement spending) while providing the kind of assets against the regime the rebels never could have dreamed of. In the long run, it can only be hoped that the ongoing revolutions mark the beginning of the end of autocracy in the Middle East, just as the 1848 revolutions did in Europe.MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-49962522540851784262013-07-21T00:30:00.002+03:002013-07-21T00:30:24.741+03:00Misrepresenting Israel's stance on negotiationsYLE, our beloved state-controlled broadcasting company, is once again misleading the public about Israel. According to them, it's only now that <a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/israel_suostuu_sittenkin_rauhanneuvotteluihin/6741714">Israel has agreed</a> (article in Finnish) to negotiate peace with the Palestinians. And how have they done that? By agreeing to release a bunch of dangerous Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian negotiators had set the release of these prisoners as a precondition - among several other preconditions such as freezing settlement constructions - for peace negotiations.
Of course, Israel has been ready and willing to negotiate <i>without preconditions</i> for several years now. Remember the 2009 10-month settlement freeze (which did not apply to East Jerusalem, a plot of land Israel is never going to surrender)? The Palestinians stalled for months, entering the negotiations only when the freeze was about to expire, and then immediately demanded that the freeze be extended.
So, if anything the Palestinians have refused to negotiate unless their conditions are met, as if they were in any position to present such demands. And, in any case, meeting any of these conditions would probably only bolster them to demand more.MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-4112885824692381612013-04-06T01:24:00.000+03:002013-04-06T01:24:57.875+03:00Why the North might want warMany are asking what could North Korea possibly gain from an all-out war, a war that'd certainly lead to its own destruction. If North Korea really wants to provoke a war, it will be because of this:<p>
<a href="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/msandt/koreaequipment2_zps36e11848.gif" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/msandt/koreaequipment2_zps36e11848.gif" /></a><br>
(<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/03/25/a-photo-that-makes-north-korea-look-a-lot-less-scary/">The Washington Post</a>)<p>
Their military equipment is at least fifty years old, nearing or way past its "best before" date. Soon it will be of little use and North Korea has absolutely no money (or anything for that matter) to obtain new equipment. And, with the Soviet Union long gone, they've got no real friends either. Combine this with the fact that the North Korean regime probably truly believes that the United States and South Korea are out to get them, just waiting for the right moment to invade, and you end up with a regime that believes it's running out of time. Either they set off what they believe to be inevitable now that they still have the initiative, or they wait and watch their (largely imaginary) military prowess decay and fade away, leaving behind a carcass of a country, to be consumed by the vulturous America and South Korea.<p>
So yes, in the crazy, self-induced world the North Korean regime lives in, a war would make sense.MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-30402207362840084652012-11-22T01:26:00.000+02:002012-11-22T01:28:43.002+02:00Israeli offensive: long overdueThroughout the year, Palestinians have been firing hundreds of rockets into Israel. October and November were particularly active in terms of rockets fired. In response to this escalation, on November 14 the Israelis <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6U2ZQ0EhN4">beautifully assassinated</a> Ahmed al-Jabari, the 2nd in command of the Hamas military wing. He had played a major role in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)">turning Gaza into a full-blown terrorist entity</a> and helped bring about Israel's destructive Operation Summer Rains offensive by kidnapping Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, in 2006. You don't negotiate with <i>terrorists</i> like him; you kill them. Even before this assassination the Palestinians had fired about 200 rockets into Israel in the course of just a few days: on November 11 over a hundred rockets were fired into Israel. If anything, Israel's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pillar_of_Defense">recent offensive</a> has been long overdue as Hamas has been well able to build up its army and smuggle weapons into Gaza despite Israel's blockade. Over a thousand rockets were fired into Israel last week, an indication that Hamas has been gaining strength. Even more, a rocket recently landed near Jerusalem, indicating an improvement in rocket technology. Considering this, ending the Gaza blockade would be disastrous as it'd only embolden Hamas and other terrorist groups. <p>
In some circles there's this popular theory that Israel doesn't even want to seek peace with Palestine, that they want Gaza to remain in a permanent state of misery while building new settlements in the West Bank, eventually leading to its annexation. Of course, it was only seven years ago that Israel <i>unilaterally withdrew</i> from the Gaza Strip, dismantling its settlements there, forcibly removing hundreds of Jewish settlers. This remarkably generous act was interpreted by Hamas as a sign of weakness as they proceeded to take over the entire Gaza Strip and continued their war on the Jewish state. (Similarly, Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon didn't make Hezbollah any less popular.) Imagine if the withdrawal had worked as intended: Israel would, in all likelihood, be much more anxious to pursue a peaceful solution to the West Bank problem, having some hope that the resulting Palestinian state would not turn into just another hostile neighbor à la Iran, Southern Lebanon, Syria or Gaza. Moreover, Israel's security concerns have only multiplied in the wake of the Arab Spring that may have, in fact, emboldened Hamas to act, hoping the new government in Egypt might come to their aid. This new aspect only makes Israel's ongoing offensive even more important as they need to show Hamas that they have nothing to gain, in terms of their goal of destroying the Jewish state, from the Arab Spring.<p>
Meanwhile Hamas continues to act like the barbarians they are. They've been <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/20/brazen-faking-images-reveals-hamas-desperation/">doctoring images and putting civilians in the line of fire</a> for the purpose of selling their cause to the world, and <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/20/hamas-kills-six-suspected-aiding-israel-drags-body-through-streets/">dragging mutilated bodies</a> of "spies" on the streets of Gaza. These "people" are in charge of running the Gaza Strip, a position they seized Nazi-style by first winning some elections, then doing away with their rivals and subjecting the entire Strip to serve their cause. While it's regrettable that civilians are dying due to Israeli airstrikes, in no way should Israel be held responsible, not so long as it's the Gazans who elected Hamas to lead them and shoot rockets at Israel. And if the Palestinians do not in fact endorse Hamas' provocations but are at the same time unable to do anything about it, that leaves only Israel to take matters into their own hands.MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-67160028667898528412012-11-07T02:44:00.001+02:002012-11-07T03:20:50.235+02:00Quiz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aYgvcVxE-yXmRfMa2QEL3hT0TT5gL_KVbiiDmkgCVN1UzfugX1GoDa1qffED7RC4lFBUffIo8CLyBvbvE5DCQOOv5QNdH0slcIe64M9eVKDPbyvGMO0ESivVE9ohA5poKlI/s1600/sidewith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aYgvcVxE-yXmRfMa2QEL3hT0TT5gL_KVbiiDmkgCVN1UzfugX1GoDa1qffED7RC4lFBUffIo8CLyBvbvE5DCQOOv5QNdH0slcIe64M9eVKDPbyvGMO0ESivVE9ohA5poKlI/s320/sidewith.jpg" width="320"/></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.isidewith.com/">http://www.isidewith.com/</a>
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I was listening to Bill O'Reilly talking about the elections and he's 100% right that if Obama wins it'll be because of the huge number of people who "want stuff" from the government and they think Obama will give it to them. In the long run it will not end well. MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-67085112794210174932012-07-27T15:43:00.002+03:002012-07-27T15:44:49.952+03:00The price of a non-marketable goodCame across <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/24/irs-art-collection-heirs-hope-to-settle-bizarre-tax-dispute-over-canyon-collage/">this</a> crazy piece of news. A pair inherits an art piece ("Canyon") worth $65 million and has to pay an inheritance tax worth $29 million. The problem, however, is that the art piece includes a stuffed bald eagle, which cannot be sold since the bird is protected. (Obviously, if a stuffed bald eagle could be sold this would only encourage people to hunt them.) In other words, "Canyon" cannot be sold due to the stuffed bald eagle and yet the pair is stuck with a tax bill of $29 million. So how can it have a price tag of $65 million? How can a non-marketable good have a market value (the price of collectibles is obviously based on their <i>market</i> value, not some out-of-the-hat valuation)?<br />
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Even more worrying, the IRS is acting like the vengeful, petty bureaucrats that they are:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Placing a value on an item that cannot be sold is no easy feat. The
venerable auction house Christie’s placed the value of "Canyon" at zero.
The IRS initially put it at $15 million, then jumped the figure to $65
million when Sundell and Homem refused to pay, according to The New York
Times.<br />
The IRS, which declined to comment on the matter, is not only asking
for $29 million in taxes, but also an $11.7 million “gross valuation
misstatement” penalty, according to Forbes.</blockquote>
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Inheritance taxes are nuts anyway. What exactly has the federal government done to deserve $29 million out of "Canyon"? They're simply robbing someone's estate.MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-91096358655458235192012-04-01T16:45:00.000+03:002012-04-01T16:45:08.722+03:00Syria - what's taking so long?<div style="text-align: justify;">
The neocons are pushing for a regime change in Syria:</div>
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For the people and the fighters of Idleb, the fight goes on. They know that once Assad is finished with Homs and Hama, and once he thinks he can get away with it, he will turn his attention back to the north. Then it will be their turn, and the dictator will exact a bloody and terrible revenge for their effrontery.<br /><br />What could prevent this is an effective coalition to counter the anti-Western one (Iran, Hezbollah, Russia) that currently underwrites the dictator. This Western coalition can only happen outside the auspices of the U.N., where Russia and China have already vetoed Security Council resolutions demanding Assad step down. (<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/inside-free-syria_630045.html?page=1">The Weekly Standard</a>)</blockquote>
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That was at the end of February. Now it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Idlib">too late</a> for the rebels in Idlib. Bolstered by Western inactivity, Assad resorted to tactics such as shellings residential neighborhoods.</div>
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The neocons, after years of ridicule, are still confident about their ideas, and why not? What has been happening in the Greater Middle East lately is more or less exactly what the neocons said would happen. Removing a constant, Saddam Hussein, from the Middle East helped alter what many considered a fixed status quo of autocratic regimes.</div>
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The intervention in Libya was a tremendous success. The cost of the operation has been estimated at about 3-4 billion dollars with the US being responsible for about a third of that amount. There were no casualties. In short, that's a lot of bang for the buck. In comparison, the United States spends nearly one <i>trillion</i> (a thousand billions) dollars on Medicare & Medicaid annually. </div>
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If Asssad is allowed to survive, the Western world has effectively helped set an example that whenever there's a internal revolt, you should resort to brutal measures to suppress the revolt. Any "peaceful solution" that preserves Assad as the head of Syria, as supported by second-rate countries such as Russia and the always-irrelevant UN, would be a travesty, an idealist piece of paper that only serves to bolster Assad's grip on Syria. The West needs to do more than just <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9162194/Syria-Asma-al-Assad-hit-with-EU-sanctions.html">freeze credit cards</a>.</div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-77086679125967994922012-02-19T04:13:00.002+02:002012-02-23T01:42:06.012+02:00No respect for adult entertainers<div style="text-align: justify;">
I hate it when porn stars, strippers & such are viewed as second-class citizens. I came across a news article from last summer about some Democrat Congressman (who looks a bit like Goebbels) having a "sexting" scandal involving Ginger Lee, a former porn star, now a stripper. The comment section of the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/ginger-lee-anthony-weiner_n_877372.html">Huffington Post article</a> (also <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/weiner_text_pal_ginger_lee_set_to_yXeWmBUG4i8BAslXMYEI3L">NYPost</a> and <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/06/029255.php">Powerline</a>) is another treasure trove of human stupidity with high-and-mighty conservatives ganging up on Lee:</div>
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<i>We're supposed to take what a former porn star / current stripper has to say seriously?</i> -sbtrfly27</div>
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<i>Maybe if we started calling them</i> [porn stars]<i> dim lights their futures might turn around. Would anyone want to be known as a porn dim light </i>-Ginny Saul</div>
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<i>Poor kid -- this must be *so* embarrassing for her. I'm sure she can't wait to get out from under the spotlight, and return to her simple, quiet lifestyle, and continue to make more films like "Share My C--k! 2" and "Manuel Ferrara F---s Them All!"</i> -Yisrael Harris</div>
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<i>I guess she didn't realize that you can block someone from texting you. That's why she's a porn star, not a rocket scientist.</i> -Turtleposer<br />
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<i>I find it hard to believe that a woman who takes on 3 guys at a time on film can be destroyed by texts containing sexual innuendo.</i> -Shapi<br />
<i>Well, she's a porn star. She was overwhelmed by written language.</i> -Turtleposer<br />
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<i>Did she obtain this moral code before or after she started performing sex acts for money?</i> -imhotep40<br />
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<i>And if you check her chin, you'll find ' Place Testicles Here'.</i> -Adi Kotler<br />
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<i>Post everything on this DIRTY WHORE! She is far from innocent and I hope she gets everything she deserves!!!</i> -John Haines</div>
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And these people claim the moral high ground?</div>
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The sad thing is that adult entertainers don't get much respect from the left either. In fact, many academic feminists are devoted to putting them down, painting them as victims who cannot be trusted to make decisions on their own. Of course, such academic feminists are merely projecting their own feelings of inadequacy on those they envy, namely, sexually powerful women like Lee. The conservative reaction is a similar Freudian projection: The supposedly pious men hate themselves for how women like Lee make them feel while conservative women (and why not women in general) merely feel threatened by adult entertainers (i.e., jealousy):</div>
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<i>I'm so sick of these women who act as if they are completely innocent and have no responsibility at all. Men wouldn't cheat on their wives if there wasn't other women willing to cheat with them. </i>-anotherwomanfromva</div>
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Of course, the vast majority of men (and an increasing number of women) consume pornography, and that majority includes a huge chunk of conservatives too. Too bad few have the guts to voice their support and respect for something they consume. </div>
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<br />MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-62188350943087375752011-10-23T17:24:00.000+03:002011-10-23T17:24:06.097+03:00Oikeutta Qaddafille<div style="text-align: justify;">
Kymmeniätuhansia ihmisä tappanut Muammar Qaddafi sai muutaman minuutin ajan kokea saman, mitä hän pakotti monet libyalaiset (ja <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103">ulkomaalaiset</a>) kokemaan 42 vuoden ajan. Tähän oikeudenmukaisuuden pilkkeeseen suomalaiset <a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/teemat/kansannousut/2011/10/gaddafille_ei_annettu_armoa_2965742.html">reagoivat odotetusti</a>:</div>
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<i>Yhdysvallat on ryhtynyt liittolaisineen tappamaan itselleen epämieluisia
henkisiä johtajia lennokeilla ja nyt valtionpäämiehiä taistelukoneilla.
Kansainvälisen yhteisön tulisi tuomita tämä kovin ottein.</i> -millä oikeudella<br />
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<i>Liittouma sai YK:lta oikeudet ilmatilan suojeluun, mutta
tosiasiallisesti vastoin YK:n lupaa pommitti siviilejä ja perääntyviä
maajoukkoja. Raukkamaista ja rikollista. Sarkozy ja Obama tulisi viedä
Haagin sotarikostuomioistuimeen tuomittaviksi.</i> -HINNATALAS<br />
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<i>Antaa tietysti tyylikkään kuvan uusista vallanpitäjistä: vanha mies pyytää armoa pakomatkalla ja hänet murhataan...<br />Eipä ihme että Amerikassa ja Ranskassa ja Italiassa ollaan ylpeitä, tämähän on juuri sitä toimintaa mihin heitä koulutetaan.</i> -Juho-Kusti<br />
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<i>Laittomasta väkivallasta puheenollen, olikohan tämä Naton toimi
lentokiellon ylläpitämistä vai siviilien suojelemista vai YK:n mandaatin
vastainen?</i> -Johan On<br />
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<i>Taas on länsiliittouman siunauksella oksennettu eurooppalaisen
oikeuskäsityksen ja ihmisarvojen kasvoille. Ja tälle irvokkaalle
lopputulokselle kansa sekä johtajat hurraavat, niin barbaarisessa
Afrikassa kuin "sivistyneessä" lännessä.</i> -roomalainen<br />
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<i>Tämä tapahtumasarja on aivan järkyttävää valtion sisäisiin asiohin
puuttumista ja sen luonnonvarojen ryöstöä. Mitä tutkimista siinä on,
että Gaddafi nyt tapettiin, kun sitä eilen oikein peräänkuulutettiin?<br />Eikö Naton pitänyt olla vain suojaamistehtävissä, eikä sodassa?<br />Vanha sana, mutta sitä tämä on: imperialismia.</i> -Erkki </blockquote>
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Suurin piirtein yhtä innostuneesti täällä <a href="http://m-sandt.blogspot.com/2011/05/as-expected.html">suhtauduttiin</a> Osaman kuolemaan.</div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-74025183294947425372011-10-15T02:25:00.001+03:002011-10-15T02:25:14.349+03:00Perverse incentivesSomeone posted this video on HFBoards:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/adBm7U9-8OM" width="420"></iframe><br />
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This could be used to demonstrate why the financial crisis happened. The cost of an RPG rocket seems to be at least $50 and can be as high as $500 depending on the model. In any case, a rocket is worth a lot more than a fish. The problem is, of course, that the individual firing the rocket does not bear any of the costs of firing the launcher (courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer) but receives all the benefits.</div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-30895803735896667632011-10-01T03:44:00.003+03:002011-10-01T03:54:50.251+03:00Challenging family traditions<div style="text-align: justify;">
Kudos to this Australian kid:</div>
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A COURT has placed a 16-year-old girl on the airport watch list to prevent an arranged marriage taking place in Lebanon.<br />
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The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, applied
to the Federal Magistrates Court for an order to restrain her parents
from taking her out of Australia to marry a man she had met only once.<br />
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The girl, given the pseudonym Ms Madley by the court,
approached the Legal Aid Commission after her parents organised the
wedding despite her telling them that<u> </u><b><u>she did not want to go</u> to Lebanon
and <u>did not want to marry</u> the man.</b></blockquote>
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Mr Harman praised the girl's ''act of great bravery'' in using the legal system to challenge her parents' authority.</blockquote>
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Ms Madley was fearful of her mother's reaction to her
application, he said, and he ordered her mother and father not to
assault, harass, threaten or intimidate her, or question her about the
proceedings.<br />
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<b>''Her actions in approaching the Legal Aid Commission,
let alone this court, might be perceived as disrespectful of her parents
and disobedient of their will,''</b> he said.<br />
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<b>Although legally a minor, the girl had displayed maturity</b>
<b> not only by taking action to protect herself from an arranged
marriage, but deciding to challenge part of the Lebanese Islamic culture
which she was brought up in.</b> (<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/girl-16-gets-court-to-halt-marriage-20110929-1kzds.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a>)</blockquote>
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In <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/forced-marriage-an-arrangement-thats-wrong-20110930-1l135.html">another article</a> from the same newspaper someone says that arranged marriages are not necessarily a bad thing:</div>
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Lyn Fletcher, from Relationships Australia, said there was a big difference between arranged marriages and those which are forced.<br />
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"Some people are happy with an arranged marriage, because that's how they've been brought up they don't have any expectations of falling in love or romantic attachment," she said.</blockquote>
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This doesn't really cast arranged marriages in any kind of a positive light. So arranged marriages are not that bad because women in some cultures have learned to live with them, i.e., have learned not to question the system? They've merely accepted their fate of having to live in a suffocating environment for the sake of the (extended) family, not because they want it.</div>
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It's precisely for this reason that it's good that this Australian case has gained some publicity, making it to the news even here in Finland. No doubt the city where I live is filled with dozens of immigrant women who think they have no choice but to submit to the authority of their families. These people should be made aware of the fact that there's a life beyond the role your family had decided for you the moment you were born.</div>
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"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." -Howard Roark, <i>The Fountainhead</i></div>
MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-72972126663102421722011-09-30T02:33:00.000+03:002011-09-30T02:34:24.280+03:00What makes God tick<div style="text-align: justify;">
South Park episode 513 ("Kenny Dies"):<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Stan:</b> Why would God let Kenny die, Chef? Why? Kenny's my friend. Why can't God take someone else's friend?<br />
<b>Chef: </b>Stan, sometimes God takes those closest to us, because it makes him feel better about himself. He is a very vengeful God, Stan. He's all pissed off about something we did thousands of years ago. He just can't get over it, so he doesn't care who he takes. Children, puppies, it don't matter to him, so long as it makes us sad. Do you understand?<br />
<b>Stan:</b> But then, why does God give us anything to start with?<br />
<b>Chef:</b> Well, look at it this way: if you want to make a baby cry, first you give it a lollipop. Then you take it away. If you never give it a lollipop to begin with, then you would have nothin' to cry about. That's like God, who gives us life and love and help just so that he can tear it all away and make us cry, so he can drink the sweet milk of our tears. You see, it's our tears, Stan, that give God his great power. </blockquote>
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MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-35989455457904106992011-09-24T02:47:00.000+03:002011-09-24T02:48:44.894+03:00Palestinian land grab<div style="text-align: justify;">
Mahmoud Abbas & co. are trying to stage a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/23/palestinians-formally-submit-un-statehood-bid/">land grab</a> of Israeli lands via the United Nations. Of course, the statehood bid won't go anywhere but that's not the point. To the Palestinians this is just another media stunt. The Palestinians want to make themselves seem desperate so that the world's useful idiots would sympathize with them despite the fact that the Palestinians have not only refused to negotiate with Israel as of late but have also launched several terrorist attacks in the past few months; they're defiant if anything, not desperate. At the same time Iran is building nuclear weapons and Turkey is in the process of cutting its ties with Israel in a shameful demonstration of Turkey's unfitness to ever join the civilized world. And people still expect<i> Israel</i> to make concessions. Israel's comprehensive 2000 peace proposal got rejected and was followed by terrorism. Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza was followed by terrorism. Lately Israel has been dismantling checkpoints in an effort to bolster the West Bank's economy, freezing new buildings in the settlements and reaching out to the Palestinians. In return the Palestinians haven given Israel nothing but rockets. If the Palestinians want a home maybe they should kindly ask Israel to kick them back to Syria, Jordan and Egypt.</div>
MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-54983069460509532142011-09-19T02:16:00.000+03:002011-09-19T02:18:51.121+03:00Strip clubs, pornography and feminists<div style="text-align: justify;">
The United States is an easy target when it comes to narrow-minded attitudes toward sexuality. Here's Texas, the heart of the Bible Belt:</div>
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In 2007, state legislators passed the Sexually Oriented Business Fee
Act, which imposed the fee ["pole tax"] on nearly 200 establishments that feature
live nude performances and allow the consumption of alcohol. The
$5-per-customer entrance fee, which is imposed on the business and not
the patron, is intended to raise money for sexual assault prevention
programs and health insurance coverage for low-income people. (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/us/27texas.html">NYTimes</a>) </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This a form of collective punishment, which is kinda perverse in a country that values <i>individual</i> responsibility. The tax assumes that everyone attending strip clubs is responsible for the actions of a few rapists. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Moreover, open attitudes toward adult entertainment <a href="http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-porn.html">have actually been found to reduce violence against women</a>. So, if the aim is to reduce the incidence of rape, Texan lawmakers should consider <i>subsidizing</i> strip clubs rather than taxing them.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But at least it's still legal in Texas to take your clothes off for money. In the so-called progressive Nordic countries women's rights and liberties are being curbed by feminists (a female supremacist movement that opposes individual liberties and equal rights) to a much, much greater degree than some conservatives in the United States ever could. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/25/iceland-most-feminist-country">Here's Julie Bindel, a feminist author, writing</a> about banning strip clubs and pornography in Iceland:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
Iceland has passed a law that will result in every strip club in the
country being shut down.<br />
<br />
Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world
to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious,
reasons. </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, feminists are united with religious extremists in their contempt of women's right to make decisions about their own lives. Only their reasons differ. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban,
firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that
women or people in general are a product to be sold."</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is just idiotic. How is selling "yourself" at a strip club any different from selling "yourself" at an office? Nearly every profession is a mixture of inherent talent and obtained skill and those are the things you're selling. The labor market consists of people selling themselves. So, the problem is not that these people are selling themselves as "products"; the problem is that feminists don't happen to like this particular product even though it's none of their business. Feminists, like religious extremists, have a vision of what a proper woman is like (even their rhetoric is similar: "It is not acceptable that women..."). Any deviations from this standard are to be looked down upon. Feminists perceive women not as adult individuals capable of using their own discretion but as child-like members of a collective who are to do what the collective tells them to do.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
Supporters of the bill say that some of the clubs are a front for prostitution
– and that many of the women work there because of drug abuse and
poverty rather than free choice. I have visited a strip club in
Reykjavik and observed the women. None of them looked happy
in their work.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What an idiot. If "not looking happy" or "working just to make ends meet" is a qualification for banning an occupation, I guess all of us are to be unemployed in the not-so-distant future. Simple-minded authoritarians like Bindel are not really helping the situation by not showing much of any respect for these women. If feminists and cultural conservatives actually respected women working in the adult industry (and taught their children to respect them as well), these women might have a better time at work and life in general. I'd guess that a big reason why some women in the adult industry don't feel appreciated is precisely because narrow-minded people like Bindel don't appreciate them as adults capable of making their own decisions. Instead, they're trying to force-feed the "you're a victim" mantra. This could also explain why drug abusers and poor people are overrepresented in the adult industry; only they've really got nothing to lose. Mainstreamization of pornography would attract more "mainstream" people. In fact, it's not surprising anymore to find that an adult entertainer holds an academic degree. Of course, feminists probably consider well-educated women who choose to work in the adult industry as traitors.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let's end this post on a <a href="http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-porn.html">positive note</a>:</div>
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let’s look at attitudes towards women – <b>studies of men who had seen
X-rated movies found that they were significantly more tolerant and
accepting of women than those men that didn’t see those movies,</b> and
studies by other investigators, female as well as male, essentially
found similarly that there was no detectable relationship of the amount
of exposure to pornography and any measure of misogynist attitudes. <b>No
researcher or critic has found the opposite, that exposure to
pornography – by any definition – has had a cause and effect
relationship towards ill feelings or actions against women. No
correlation has even been found between exposure to porn and <i>calloused</i> attitudes toward women.</b></div>
</blockquote>
MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-47164429907072560982011-09-10T22:27:00.001+03:002011-09-10T22:27:35.892+03:00Tasa-arvo ja pitkät hiukset<div style="text-align: justify;">
Kirjoitin tasa-arvovaltuutettumme tekemisistä viimeksi <a href="http://vapaasana.net/blogi/2011/05/erilliset-vaatimukset-ovat-tasaarvoa">täällä</a>. Taas on nähtävästi kunnon tekemiset loppuneet, kun pitää puuttua siihen, millaiset hiukset firmoihin sopii:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
Tasa-arvovaltuutettu haastaa armeijaa harkitsemaan, millaiset hiukset
sotilaalla voi olla. Valtuutettu salli tuoreessa lausunnossaan yrityksen
miestyöntekijän siistit pitkät hiukset. Puolustusvoimat ei ole havainnut
muutoksen tarvetta. <br />
<br />
Yhdysvaltalaisomisteinen jakelufirma määräsi omissa ohjeissaan, että
asiakaspalvelutyössä naisilla voi olla pitkä tukka mutta miehillä ei.<br />
<br />
Tasa-arvovaltuutettu Pirkko Mäkisen lausunnon mukaan suomalaisessa
yhteiskunnassa miehellä voi olla pitkät, siistit hiukset. Jos miesten
hiusten pituutta rajoitetaan vain sukupuolen takia, kyse on syrjinnästä. (<a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2011/09/pitkatukkainen_mies_ei_viela_kelpaa_armeijalle_2854294.html?origin=rss">YLE</a>)
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Nyt valtio siis päättää, minkälaiset hiukset miehellä saa työpaikalla olla. Tällä ei tietenkään pitäisi olla mitään tekemistä syrjinnän kanssa. Hiustyylihän on hankittu ominaisuus, johon jokainen yksilö voi vaikuttaa; pitkätukkaisia yksilöitä ei syrjitä, sillä hehän voivat aina leikata hiuksensa. Samoin koulutus on hankittu ominaisuus ja näin ollen pätevä perustelu "syrjinnälle". Tätä vastoin esimerkiksi ihonväriin yksilö ei kykene mitenkään itse vaikuttamaan, joten sen perusteella syrjiminen on sekä epäreilua että typerää. (Yksityisomaisuuden tapauksessa syrjinnän tosin pitäisi olla sallittua. Kilpailullisilla markkinoilla tällaisesta syrjinnästä olisi lähinnä haittaa.) Jakelufirman tapauksessa nähtävästi sekä miehiltä että naisilta odotettiin siisteyttä, joten "syrjintä" tässä tapauksessa perustui hankittuun ominaisuuteen, siisteyteen, eikä sukupuoleen.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
- On tullut väheksyvää palautetta, eikö virkamiehellä ole parempaa
mietittävää. Toisaalta on tullut kiittävää palautetta, että vihdoinkin -
hyvä että puutuit miesten asiaan, Mäkinen summaa.
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
No onpa kiva, että jotkut tykkäävät. Virkamiehethän voisivat kieltää mitä tahansa, ja aivan varmasti jokaiselle kiellolle löytyisi tuhansia kannattajia. Esimerkiksi sananvapaudesta päästäisiin äkkiä eroon tällä tavalla, kun vaan kiellettäisiin tiettyjä puheenaiheita kerrallaan. Jos joku virkamies esimerkiksi onnistuisi kieltämään Jumalan pilkkaamisen, niin hän todennäköisesti saisi uskovaisilta satoja ylistäviä kirjeitä. Tällaisen hiljattaisen vapauksien kapenemisen ohella turhan byrokratian määrä lisääntyy, mikä lisää kaikenlaisia kustannuksia, kun esimerkiksi firman perustamista harkitsevat kohtaavat entistä suuremman läjän turhia regulaatioita.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Samaisessa uutisessa kuitenkin mainitaan, että armeijassa erilaiset siisteysstandardit ovat olleet hyväksyttäviä, mutta että tähänkin pitäisi tulla muutos:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote>
- Kyllä minä haastan puolustushallintoa seuraamaan aktiivisesti sitä
kehitystä, jota yhteiskunnassa tapahtuu ja miettimään, milloin on harkinnan
paikka, Mäkinen kehottaa.
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Huomattavaa on, että tässä puhutaan nimenomaan miesten pitkien hiusten sallimisesta, ei armeijassa palvelevien pitkähiuksisten naisten pakottamisesta hiustenleikkuuseen, vaikka se olisi tietenkin perustellumpaa, voivathan pitkät hiukset aiheuttaa täiepidemioiden ohella ongelmia kenttäolosuhteissa.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Armeija on lisääntyvissä määrin joutumassa kaikenlaisten ideologien yhteiskunnallisten ihmisenmuokkausprojektien kohteeksi. Aiemminhan <a href="http://m-sandt.blogspot.com/2011/08/banning-landmines-naive-and-dangerous.html">hallitus päätti maamiinakiellosta</a>, vedoten puhtaasti idealistisiin, maanpuolustuksen kannalta järjettömiin, syihin. Mäkinen itse <a href="http://vapaasana.net/blogi/2011/05/erilliset-vaatimukset-ovat-tasaarvoa">on ajanut</a> löysempiä kuntotasovaatimuksia armeijassa palveleville naisille, mikä tietenkin tasa-arvon rikkomisen ohella heikentäisi armeijan kykyä suoriutua maanpuolustustehtävästään. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Nähtävästi tasa-arvolla menee aika hyvin Suomessa, kun tasa-arvovaltuutettu ei parempaa tekemistä keksi. Virka on selkeästi turha, varsinkin kun tämän viran puitteissa tuskin puututaan niihin kahteen räikeimpään tasa-arvo-ongelmaan eli miesten pakolliseen asevelvollisuuteen ja naisten suosimiseen huoltajuuskiistoissa. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-32108440461927150122011-09-01T22:51:00.000+03:002011-09-01T22:51:21.473+03:00Lisää kieltoja ratkaisuiksi ongelmiin<div style="text-align: justify;">Pettämätöntä logiikkaa:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><blockquote>Sisäministeri Päivi Räsäsen (kd.) mielestä ravintoloissa tapahtuvaan seksikauppaan puututtaisiin parhaiten kieltämällä seksin osto Ruotsin malliin.</blockquote><blockquote>Räsäsen mukaan ostokielto selkeyttäisi pelisääntöjä. </blockquote><blockquote>- Toimintaan pystyttäisiin aina puuttumaan, tapahtuipa se sitten yleisellä paikalla tai ei, hän sanoo lehdelle. (<a href="http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/2011083014288174_uu.shtml">Iltalehti</a>)</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pari päivää sitten <a href="http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/artikkeli/Iltalehti+Tulli+takavarikoi+yli+50+000+potenssil%C3%A4%C3%A4kett%C3%A4/1135268917887">uutisoitiin</a>, että tullin haaviin jäi kevään ja kesän aikana lasti laittomia potenssilääkkeitä. Kerta oli tuskin ensimmäinen, eli voimme olettaa mustan pörssin lääkekaupan olevan jonkin sortin ongelma. Räsäsen logiikan mukaisesti ehdotan lääkkeiden oston kieltoa. Samaan hengenvetoon ehdotan pelien ja elokuvien ostokieltoa, jotta piratismiin "pystyttäisiin aina puuttumaan".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kristillisdemokraattien Räsänen nähtävästi käyttää asemaansa sisäministerinä hyväkseen ajaakseen kristittyjen sairaita seksuaalinormeja Suomen lakiin.</div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-20192041464568027562011-08-26T20:09:00.000+03:002011-08-26T20:09:33.005+03:00Rauhankyyhkyt<div style="text-align: justify;">Joku "laitonta miehitystä" vastustava aktivisti haluaa töhriä julkisia paikkoja Palestiina-myönteisillä piirustuksilla:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote>Tampereen keskustaan suunnitellun rauhankyyhkyjä esittävän katumaalauksen kieltäminen on herättänyt keskustelua. Taiteilija Juho Viitala olisi teoksellaan halunnut kiinnittää huomiota Israelin Palestiinan-politiikkaan. Koska maalaus on poliittisesti kantaaottava, maalauksen kieltoa on pidetty jopa sananvapautta rajoittavana. </blockquote><blockquote>- Yritin siinä viestittää, että laiton miehitys, joka palestiinalaisalueilla on jatkunut loputtomiin Israelin toimesta, niin se ei varmastikaan ole kovin hyvä asia Suomen ulkopoliittisen linjan kanssa olla ristiriidassa niin vakavasti, puolustusministeriön materiaalihankinnat ja vastakauppasopimukset. (<a href="http://yle.fi/alueet/tampere/2011/08/loukkaako_katumaalauksen_kielto_sananvapautta_2815926.html">YLE</a>)</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Onpa idioottimaista kuvitella, että tällä olisi jotain tekemistä sananvapauden kanssa. Kyseessä on (oletettavasti) verovaroin ylläpidetty julkinen tila. Suuri(n) osa veronmaksajista ei varmasti hyväksyisi heidän kustantamansa <i>kävelyalueen</i> tuhrimista poliittisilla kannanotoilla.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jos Viitalalla pitäisi olla oikeus esittää poliittisia kannanottoja tällä tavalla, niin kai hänen mielestään olisi täysin hyväksyttävää, että joku Israelia kannattava taho kävisi poliittisena mielenilmaisuna suttaamassa ko. katumaalauksen, kyseinen tila kun kuuluu tietenkin yhtä paljon Israelia kannattaville kuin Israelia vastustavillekin. </div><br />
<br />
MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-73388867181563123152011-08-23T03:08:00.004+03:002011-08-23T03:09:34.755+03:00Veronkiertäjät samalle tasolle raiskaajien kanssa?<div style="text-align: justify;">Ministereillä taas prioriteetit kunnossa:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote>Talousrikollisten vankilatuomioita halutaan pidentää. Asiantuntijan mukaan nykyistä kovemmat rangaistukset vähentäisivät talousrikollisuutta. Uusi oikeusministeri Anna-Maja Henriksson (r.) käynnistää selvityksen rangaistusten koventamisesta. (<a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2011/08/talousrikollisille_vaaditaan_kovempia_rangaistuksia_2805125.html?origin=rss">YLE</a>)</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Samaan aikaan ihmisarvottomat raiskaajat ja henkirikosten tekijät selviävät parin vuoden linnareissulla johtuen oikeuslaitoksen virkamiesten kollektiivisesta mielenhäiriöstä.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><blockquote>Tyypillinen talousrikos on rakennusalalla tehty verorikos</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Toisin sanoen, tyypillisessä talousrikoksessa rikos koostuu siitä, että "rikoksentekijä" <i>ei suostu luopumaan omista rahoistaan.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote>Monet asiantuntijat ovat sitä mieltä, että ehdottomat vankilatuomiot ja pidemmät rangaistukset vähentäisivät talousrikollisuutta. <br />
- Kyse on paljolti tuomioistuinten käytännöstä. Suomeenkin olisi kuitenkin lakiin hyvä saada kuuden vuoden maksimirangaistus. Tämä varmasti vähentäisi intoa tehdä talousrikoksia.</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jostain ihmeen syystä henkirikosten kohdalla kuitenkin kuvitellaan, että ankarammat rangaistukset eivät ehkäisisi henkirikoksia, vaikka niitäkin tehdään "harkitusti".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-19073956148376278822011-08-19T02:59:00.000+03:002011-08-19T02:59:06.633+03:00Banning landmines - naive and dangerous idealism<div style="text-align: justify;">Now that a bunch of naive idealists in the government have agreed to get rid of landmines, it's fitting to quote Charles Krauthammer (<a href="http://www.aei.org/book/755">2004</a>):</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><span class="biot">Realists do not live just in America. I found one in Finland. During the 1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land mine treaty, one of the rare holdouts, interestingly enough, was Finland. The Finnish prime minister stoutly opposed the land mine ban. And for that he was scolded by his Scandinavian neighbors. To which he responded tartly that this was a “very convenient” pose for the “other Nordic countries”--after all, Finland is their land mine. <br />
<br />
Finland is the land mine between Russia and Scandinavia. America is the land mine between barbarism and civilization. </span></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="biot">Our president (and commander in chief), Tarja Halonen, has been an advocate of the landmine ban. An officer in the Finnish military was recently fined for calling her incompetent.</span></div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-10136143467136118912011-07-30T00:17:00.002+03:002011-07-30T16:04:55.766+03:00Tragedy in Norway and the assault on individual liberties<div style="text-align: justify;">Since Anders Behring Breivik used to play <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfare_2">Modern Warfare 2</a> with the intended purpose of learning military tactics, why don't we ban the game? This is pretty much the line of reasoning dozens of politicians have utilized in the wake of recent school shootings in various countries. This is the line of reasoning Finnish politicians and wannabe politicans are now utilizing to further their political agendas in the wake of the mass murder in Norway. Our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, <a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/teemat/Norjan_tragedia/2011/07/tuomioja_huolissaan_nimettomista_vihapuheista_netissa_2752441.html?origin=rss">wants</a> to put restrictions on online "hate speech", specifying hate speech as speech that encourages people to do what Breivik did. (I haven't seen such hate speech myself, kinda like I have never seen child pornography on the internet even though some politicians make it sound as if you can't get far without running into such pornography.) More specifically, he wants to restrict the use of aliases which champions of free speech have historically used in order to avoid persecution. Dissidents in China, the Middle East and so on rely on anonymity. He also <a href="http://yle.fi/alueet/savo/2011/07/metsastajat_torjuvat_tuomiojan_ehdotuksen_2750596.html?origin=rss">wants to restrict</a> gun ownership rights, saying that "no one needs" guns with magazine capacity at or above 30, as if it were up to him to decide what people need.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's a disgrace that the actions of a <i>single</i> <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Anders_Behring_Breivik_in_diving_suit_with_gun_%28self_portrait%29.jpg">madman</a> are used as a pretext to curb individual liberties, liberties that belong to everyone, liberties that the vast majority of us use in a responsible way. This is why there aren't many lessons to be learned from the massacre. Anti-immigration "racists" are no more responsible for what Breivik did than Modern Warfare 2 is. A quick look at Breivik's <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/60739170/2083-a-European-Declaration-of-Independence">political positions </a>reveals that the guy is a mess if anything, combining Christianity, liberalism (he cites classical liberals such as F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and even Ayn Rand who was a staunch atheist), conservatism, anti-Marxism, Islamophobia, nationalism etc. in his writings. None of these in particular makes him mad. Breivik was mad in believing that his actions would spark a European civil war that'd end by the year 2083. If anything, this resembles Charles Manson's reasoning (Manson believed that the murders he orchestrated would ignite a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helter_Skelter_%28Manson_scenario%29">race war</a> that'd inevitably be won by blacks) and Masonic conspiracy theories (Breivik was a Freemason). Moreover, Breivik's writing is incredibly child-like and idiotic, as revealed by the fact that he actually proposes using Modern Warfare 2 as a military simulator and <a href="http://ology.com/technology/norway-shooter-cites-modern-warfare-2-world-warcraft-his-manifesto">World of Warcraft</a> as a means to hide your real activities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, look no further than the fact that Anders Behring Breivik was both a lunatic and an idiot. You're not helping anything by attributing Breivik's behavior to video games and broken marriages like <a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/teemat/Norjan_tragedia/2011/07/terrorismiasiantuntija_breivik_eli_virtuaalitodellisuudessa_2755605.html?origin=rss">this Swedish terrorism expert</a> does, citing video games and his parents' broken marriage as causes of his "personality disorder". Should we draw the conclusion that you belong to some kind of a risk group if 1) your parents are divorced and 2) you play Modern Warfare 2? How many millions does that make? I'm sure many of you can name a few who meet the requirements. But how many people you know who could actually start shooting <i>kids</i>? Our "anti-immigration" politician Timo Soini <a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/talous_ja_politiikka/2011/07/soini_suomen_poliitikot_kayttavat_hyvakseen_norjan_tragediaa_2754655.html">said it best</a>: "We're talking about a single fanatic, a psychopath and the murders he committed."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We should not start restricting our liberties simply because some lunatics abuse theirs. For lunatics, any excuse will do. We just have to live with it (and punish these individuals when they do act); that's the price of liberty. Otherwise, if we do start restricting our liberties, there's nothing left to live for. This is why I'm more worried about what our politicians will do now than I'm worried about the next attack. Restricting the use of online aliases would alone be a greater tragedy than the massacre in Norway.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">---- </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There's a very serious lesson to be drawn from all this and that is that the Norwegian state failed in what is the most fundamental responsibility of the state; protecting individuals from criminals. While the massacre was ongoing the local police did nothing but wait for a SWAT unit that then ran into <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-07-28/news/bs-ed-smith-20110728_1_police-chopper-pilots-army-helicopter-police-officers">some difficulties</a> before finally making it to the island. It's also telling that Breivik didn't shoot himself once he was done. When news of the incident started to emerge I immediately assumed the killer had committed suicide. Then I remembered that Norway is like Finland: murderers can expect lenient sentences and prison conditions are actually quite comfortable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10529753.post-81438462534111585612011-07-10T20:02:00.001+03:002011-07-10T20:08:28.371+03:00China is not a model<div style="text-align: justify;">The Economist has another <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/07/debt-crises-0?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/europeandamericaincreasinglyalike">typical article</a> that degenerates into treating China with words like "ooh" and "aah". First the article lists economic and political <i>similarities</i> between the US and the EU and then starts drawing comparisons to China, implying that the Chinese government (or any authoritarian regime) could cope with financial crises more effectively than "dysfunctional" democracies. Maybe, but let's not start treating China as some kind of a model until comparisons between the West and China become valid. Despite the fact that the Chinese GDP soon catches up with that of the US, their current GDP per capita is less than <i>one tenth</i> of that of the US. The time to start drawing comparisons is when the <i>Communist</i> party has made it possible for the Chinese to enjoy Western levels of prosperity. With their current political and economic system there's no chance of that happening. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There's one good point there though: "Every year China continues to grow, the case that countries need to be democracies in order to become wealthy and developed becomes more tenuous."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course, this is nothing new. During the Cold War many 3rd world countries adopted the Soviet system as an economic model. What failed them was not any lack of democracy but the centrally-planned economic system that China has now somewhat abandoned. Even in the West many countries were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism">economically liberal</a> before they were politically liberal. It was the wealth brought on by Capitalism that made people in the West demand more political liberties. This is also what makes the Chinese leadership so nervous.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is Capitalism that brings stability in the first place because materially well-off people have a lot to lose if they resort to petty factionalism. (No wonder then that Communist revolutions took place exactly where Marx least expected them.) This is why democratic countries that have been made prosperous by Capitalism are stable while attempts to introduce democracy prior to Capitalism tend to result in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan">failures</a>.</div>MSandthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13875333396948546859noreply@blogger.com0