What's good for the Nazi works for a jihadi

[cnorman18]

Op-ed in today's Washington Times

What's good for the Nazi works for a jihadi

President Obama was right when he declared after convening the post mortem on the Detroit debacle that "we have to do better." The simple fact is that $42 billion later, Americans do not feel much safer getting on an airplane than they did eight years ago. Despite the post- Sept. 11 upgrades in security, despite the long lines, the inconveniences of removing shoes and belts and coming soon to an airport near you - full body scans - we are not reassured that the next disaster is not lurking just around the corner. People are concerned we aren't doing enough to fight the enemy and we're still not sure we've fully identified the enemy.

The administration and its Republican critics are still arguing whether Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's Ft. Hood massacre constitutes an act of terrorism. That dispute is reflected in a larger debate of whether we are still in a "war against terror" and whether individuals like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should be treated as enemy combatants or read their Miranda Rights as common criminals.

But however that debate shakes out, there is an important move, that would cost little but could strike a blow against extremism and make our skies a little safer: The president admitted that the current watch list is inadequate. But America needs to immediately expand its terrorist watch list. Consider this fact: While the United States has a database of 500,000 individuals implicated in criminal activity, only 1,700 of those names are on the terrorist watch list banning entry into the United States. Compare that to the watch list developed by the U.S. Justice Department of suspected Nazi war criminals. Developed in the 1980s, 40,000 individuals were initially listed, but later the list expanded beyond 70,000 when the Office of Special Investigations on Nazi War Crimes (OSI) included the entire roster of the Nazi SS - and all others who belonged to groups that abetted genocide.

Most of those aging genociders are in their 80s or 90s today and the hunt for Nazi war criminals will soon reach its biological solution. But not so Islamist terrorism - only in its genesis - which is the scourge of all humanity at the dawn of the new decade. It is inconceivable that in fighting the existential threat of terrorism, that we can be operating with a list of only 1,700 people to bar from entering the United States. To better protect the flying public and to strike a blow against extremists who today regularly indescriminantly slaughter fellow Muslims, the Department of Homeland Security should take a page from the Nazi watch list and immediately add those who openly support and abet terrorism. In practical terms, it means immediately listing the many thousands of names of all known members and enablers of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Indonesia's Jemmah Islamiyah and other terror groups listed by the State Department and the European Union.

And there are others who never fired a bullet, or strapped themselves to a ticking bomb, who nevertheless deserve to be publicly placed on America's terror watch list. They include Al Jazeera's Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, whose online fatwa insists that Palestinian women have the right to attain martyrdom by blowing themselves up amidst Israelis. There is Omar Bakri Muhammad, who once claimed to be a recruiter for al Qaeda and organized the "Magnificent 19" (Sept. 11 bombers) in London. Jordan's Dr. Ibrahim Zayd Al-Kilani, who said this: "killing a transgressing American soldier" is an obligation and a kind of jihad. There are the followers of Indonesia's notorious Abu Bakar Bashir, Jamaica's Abdullah el-Faisel, and Libyan-born Abu Yaha al- Libi, who defends the "legitimacy" of violent jihad as a "religious obligation." And of course, Yemen's favorite American Anwar al-Awlaki who served as spiritual mentor and validator to Ft. Hood's Maj. Hasan and the Northwest Airlines terrorist.

We have no doubts that a simple e-mail to all U.S. embassies by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would flush out many more terror enablers. To be sure, errors will be made and anyone who stands accused of such activity must be given recourse to clear their names. It may also be true that not everyone who belongs to a terrorist group will become a suicide bomber, but let them suffer the consequences - why should Americans have to take that risk?

By compiling a true terror watch list, the United States and allies will reassure the shaken flying public that no one committed to terrorism against innocent civilians is aboard their flight. Such a policy will also help strengthen the hand of moderates across the Arab and Muslim world struggling against these extremists. And by providing the guardians of our borders with accurate and timely information about all those who promote and deploy terrorism against our nation, we can help co-opt the need to turn to blanket racial and ethnic profiling.

The time to act is now.

Rabbi Marvin Hier is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Center.

It's hard to see how anyone of any religion or any political persuasion could disagree with this.

[East of Eden]

"Noam Chomsky, for example, writes that Amartya Sen in the early 1980s estimated "the excess of mortality" in India over China due to the latter's "relatively equitable distribution of healthcare resources" at close to 4 million a year. Chomsky therefore argues that, "suppos[ing] we now apply the methodology of the Black Book and its reviewers" to India alone, the "democratic capitalist experiment" since 1947 has caused more deaths than in the entire history of Communism everywhere.[17]"

# ^ Counting the Bodies - Noam Chomsky, Spectrezine magazine.

You claimed it was according to the BBofC, which it wasn't. Strange you believe the kook Chomsky before Churchill.

It can depending on how those resources are distributed and where. However, once again irrelevant as most of the :victims of Communism" were not political enemies but just people who were on the bad end of famines.

No they weren't, Ukraine was intentional, see the my post earlier.

Yes, the fallacy is called appeal to authority and it was committed when it was acted as though because Churchill said it it must be true. The quote is suspect because the only source for it was a political enemy of Stalin's with an agenda and interest in seeing him destroyed. It isn't like there is a recording of it, or a published interview, and it directly contradicts the evidence as to how many were killed and where, and so we have no good reason to believe Stalin ever said that.

The Churchill quote completely jives with the Ukraine post earlier. You're not a holocaust denier also, are you?

Not per regime and certainly not per capita. Of course, capitalism would have even more, so the point is moot to begin with.

Cite? Not from Karl Marx, please. 'Capitalism' is marxist terminology, the term describes a natural pattern of human behavior where people voluntary exchange objects of value for goods and services. It isn't an 'ism', its been around as long as man. The Communist phenomem we've been discussing of governments killing huge numbers of its own people is pretty recent.

[MagusYanam]

I meant plague as in widespread affliction, not viral.

Yersinia pestis isn't a viral infection, it's a bacterial one. And if socialism is a 'widespread affliction' to be compared with Yersinia, it's obviously not very good at its job (again, see Taiwan, Japan et al.)

'Capitalism' is marxist terminology, the term describes a natural pattern of human behavior where people voluntary exchange objects of value for goods and services.

They do that in socialist economies, too. Funny, that.

But in any case, this is wrong. 'Capitalism' didn't come into use in English until well after Marx, but as Abraxas is using it, it describes an ideology rooted in classical-liberal economics which assumes the potential for perfect competition and equal access to capital in a completely open market, a mode of thought that hasn't been relevant since the beginning of the 19th century (though a bunch of cranky old Austrians and their proselytes continue to hang onto it like some perverted religious fetish).

As such, most forms of 'capitalism' in practice now are 'mixed' or 'welfare' capitalisms using methodologies developed to counter the critiques of Marxism (witness, the Keynesian and post-Keynesian schools), which provide the public with some forms of control and oversight through government regulation and taxation.

No they weren't, Ukraine was intentional, see the my post earlier.

Wrong. Ukraine was the result of stupidity in ideology-driven Soviet agricultural policies; see my post earlier.

[Abraxas]

"Noam Chomsky, for example, writes that Amartya Sen in the early 1980s estimated "the excess of mortality" in India over China due to the latter's "relatively equitable distribution of healthcare resources" at close to 4 million a year. Chomsky therefore argues that, "suppos[ing] we now apply the methodology of the Black Book and its reviewers" to India alone, the "democratic capitalist experiment" since 1947 has caused more deaths than in the entire history of Communism everywhere.[17]"

# ^ Counting the Bodies - Noam Chomsky, Spectrezine magazine.

You claimed it was according to the BBofC, which it wasn't. Strange you believe the kook Chomsky before Churchill.

Read it again. Chomsky made the argument using Amartya's numbers. The methodology was the same as BBoC.

Chomsky had far less ulterior motive than Churchill did, and he is a credible source. Further, he as the source is irrelevant if the numbers from Amartya are accurate and BBoC used excess mortality from resource distribution, namely medicine as he says they did.

It can depending on how those resources are distributed and where. However, once again irrelevant as most of the :victims of Communism" were not political enemies but just people who were on the bad end of famines.

No they weren't, Ukraine was intentional, see the my post earlier.

What, the unsourced remark from Churchill or the cut and paste propaganda insert from BBoC?

Yes, the fallacy is called appeal to authority and it was committed when it was acted as though because Churchill said it it must be true. The quote is suspect because the only source for it was a political enemy of Stalin's with an agenda and interest in seeing him destroyed. It isn't like there is a recording of it, or a published interview, and it directly contradicts the evidence as to how many were killed and where, and so we have no good reason to believe Stalin ever said that.

The Churchill quote completely jives with the Ukraine post earlier. You're not a holocaust denier also, are you?

Afraid not, though if I were I suspect you would rejoice as name calling seems to be your last trick and that would make it very easy for you. Ironic choice of name though, since you are the one trying to downplay the number of people Hitler killed here, pushing the idea that the systematic murder of millions on the basis of heritage and culture is not as bad as failed agricultural policies which in all likelihood had a lower body count.

Not per regime and certainly not per capita. Of course, capitalism would have even more, so the point is moot to begin with.

Cite? Not from Karl Marx, please. 'Capitalism' is marxist terminology, the term describes a natural pattern of human behavior where people voluntary exchange objects of value for goods and services. It isn't an 'ism', its been around as long as man. The Communist phenomem we've been discussing of governments killing huge numbers of its own people is pretty recent.

To start with, I will cite that Chomsky quote.

That is an incredibly weak and unreliable definition of capitalism. Indeed, that definition could better be described as barter. Capitalism is the process by which the owner of a property profits from the work of a labor force employed to work for them and this too is a relatively recent phenomenon, certainly so on the scale we see it at today. Further, your use of the word voluntarily is certainly not without dispute.

[East of Eden]

I meant plague as in widespread affliction, not viral.

Yersinia pestis isn't a viral infection, it's a bacterial one. And if socialism is a 'widespread affliction' to be compared with Yersinia, it's obviously not very good at its job (again, see Taiwan, Japan et al.)

I prefer Hong Kong. Do you think they were harmed by a lack of government intervention in the economy?

'Capitalism' is marxist terminology, the term describes a natural pattern of human behavior where people voluntary exchange objects of value for goods and services.

They do that in socialist economies, too. Funny, that.

You missed the 'voluntary' part. Much harder to do that in a coercive nanny state.

But in any case, this is wrong. 'Capitalism' didn't come into use in English until well after Marx, but as Abraxas is using it, it describes an ideology rooted in classical-liberal economics which assumes the potential for perfect competition and equal access to capital in a completely open market, a mode of thought that hasn't been relevant since the beginning of the 19th century (though a bunch of cranky old Austrians and their proselytes continue to hang onto it like some perverted religious fetish).

The 'cranky' old Austrians didn't have millions of victims to their name. I guess extreme force is needed in socialist countries for those who don't get with the program.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.�
Winston Churchill quotes (British Orator, Author and Prime Minister during World War II. 1874-1965)

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.�
Alexis de Tocqueville quotes (French Historian and Political scientist. 1805-1859)

“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it�
Thomas Sowell quotes (American Writer and Economist, b.1930)

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.�
Winston Churchill quotes (British Orator, Author and Prime Minister during World War II. 1874-1965)

“Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master�
Henry Louis Mencken quotes (American humorous Journalist and Critic of American life who influenced US fiction through the 1920s, 1880-1956)

“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.�
Karl Marx quotes (German political Philosopher and revolutionary, 1818-1883)[Oh, I forgot, he wasn't really a socialist.]

“Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion�
Richard John Neuhaus quotes

“The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer's money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family- which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions- began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to "help."�
surfun Thomas Sowell quotes (American Writer

As such, most forms of 'capitalism' in practice now are 'mixed' or 'welfare' capitalisms using methodologies developed to counter the critiques of Marxism (witness, the Keynesian and post-Keynesian schools), which provide the public with some forms of control and oversight through government regulation and taxation.

Unfortunately true.

Wrong. Ukraine was the result of stupidity in ideology-driven Soviet agricultural policies; see my post earlier.

Stupidity is inherent in the socialist ideology, the idea that the leader and his cronies can deliver better than the free market can. Some do agree with you that Ukraine was not intentional, others don't:

The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомор; translation: murder by hunger) was a famine in the Ukrainian SSR from 1932–1933, during which millions of people starved to death as a result of the economic and trade policies instituted by the government of Joseph Stalin. The famine was a part of wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933. There were no natural causes for starvation and in fact, Ukraine—unlike other Soviet Republics—enjoyed a bumper wheat crop in 1932.[1][2] Millions of inhabitants died of starvation in an unprecedented peacetime catastrophe in the history of Ukraine.[1][3][4][5] Estimates on the total number of casualties within Soviet Ukraine range mostly from 2.6 million[6][7] to 10 million.[8]

The root cause of the Holodomor is a subject of scholarly debate.[9] Some scholars have argued that the Soviet policies that caused the famine may have been designed as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, and therefore fall under the legal definition of genocide.[10][11][12][13][14] Therefore the Holodomor is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine"[15][16] and "famine-genocide in Ukraine".[17] Others, however, conclude that the Holodomor was a consequence of the economic problems associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialization[11][12][18][19], possibly unavoidable.[20]

As of March 2008, Ukraine and nineteen other governments[21] have recognized the actions of the Soviet government as an act of genocide. The joint statement at the United Nations in 2003 has defined the famine as the result of cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, Russians, Kazakhs and other nationalities in the USSR[22]. On 23 October 2008 the European Parliament adopted a resolution[23] that recognized the Holodomor as a crime against humanity.[24]

On January 12, 2010 The court of appeals in Kiev opened hearings into the "fact of genocide-famine Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33", in May 2009 the Security Service of Ukraine had started a criminal case "in relation to the genocide in Ukraine in 1932-33".[25] In a ruling on January 13, 2010 the court found Joseph Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders guilty of genocide against the Ukrainians. However, the court dropped criminal proceedings against the leaders, Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Stanislav Kosior, Pavel Postyshev and others, due to their deaths.[26] This decision became effective on January 21, 2010 after not having been contested in the Supreme Court of Ukraine for seven days.[27]

Wikipedia

Interesting that prior to socialism Russia was a grain exporter.


Let me ask you a question since you seem to be a supporter of socialism: Say you were in college and studied hard and got an A, and the girl next to you didn't and got an F. Should the teacher have taken two grades from you and given both of you a C? Wouldn't that be 'fairness'?

[MagusYanam]

Russia was never socialist. The socialists (who in Russia were called 'Меньшевики') lost power after the October Revolution and were banned as a party, many sent into exile in 1921 or forced to join the communists.

I prefer Hong Kong. Do you think they were harmed by a lack of government intervention in the economy?

Of the Four Asian Tigers, they seem the most susceptible to financial instability, and this recession proved no exception. Singapore, with its mixed economy, fared much better and without having to rely on such extensive props from the Mainland.

You missed the 'voluntary' part. Much harder to do that in a coercive nanny state.

I have lived in Finland, in England, in China and in Kazakhstan - all of which have mixed economies and social programs. I encountered no difficulty in making voluntary exchanges for goods and services in any of those countries, and neither did any of the people who sold those goods and services to me.

Let me ask you a question since you seem to be a supporter of socialism: Say you were in college and studied hard and got an A, and the girl next to you didn't and got an F. Should the teacher have taken two grades from you and given both of you a C? Wouldn't that be 'fairness'?

See, here's the problem with your sloppy use of language. I'm not a supporter of socialism - my economic position is probably closer to the 'one nation Conservatives' or 'red Tories' of Great Britain than to the socialists. But since you seem to be of the opinion that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically a 'socialist', then I suppose I'll humour you.

In a classroom setting, I would expect my work to be rewarded with a grade proportionate to it. However, economies are messy things not to be confused with classrooms - not everyone is expected to do the same kind of work with the same resources for the same pay. Economies do not care - as teachers do - that each student gets the same resources to do the same job. It is the government's duty not to attain a monopoly on all forms of capital (as many socialists would want) but to vigorously curb the abuses of the economy and provide a 'preferential option' for the poor. After all:

Where a great proportion of the people are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation.

[East of Eden]

Russia was never socialist.

Tell Wikipedia:

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the Russian: Союз Совет�ких Социали�тиче�ких Ре�публик (help·info), tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, IPA [s�ˈjʊs s�ˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɪəlʲɪˈstʲiʨɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpʊblʲɪk], abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union,[1] from Совет�кий Союз, Sovetskiy Soyuz. A soviet is a council, the theoretical basis for the socialist society of the USSR.

Of the Four Asian Tigers, they seem the most susceptible to financial instability, and this recession proved no exception. Singapore, with its mixed economy, fared much better and without having to rely on such extensive props from the Mainland.

Hong Kong did much better than other former British colonies who followed the socialist example of the mother country.

I have lived in Finland, in England, in China and in Kazakhstan - all of which have mixed economies and social programs. I encountered no difficulty in making voluntary exchanges for goods and services in any of those countries, and neither did any of the people who sold those goods and services to me.

Your anecdotes aside, economic freedom leads to prosperity and human rights. Which end of this list would you rather live in?

http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx

From the above website:

"Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself."

See, here's the problem with your sloppy use of language.

There is no sloppy use of language, there are differences of opinions.

Where a great proportion of the people are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation.

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."

Thomas Jefferson

[MagusYanam]

Tell Wikipedia:

So now you're buying into the Soviet Big Lie with what they called themselves. Again, just because they call themselves 'socialist' does not actually make them socialist.

Hong Kong did much better than other former British colonies who followed the socialist example of the mother country.

I notice on your own list of economically-free countries that Australia, New Zealand, Canada and even Great Britain herself are well within the top twenty. And Britain was the first to pull out of this recent recession.

There is no sloppy use of language, there are differences of opinions.

What are you, some kind of moral relativist? No - worse, you seem to be advocating for linguistic relativism. 'Socialism' is a word with an actual meaning - that is, (the philosophy of advocating) a democratic social order in which capital enterprises are owned by the government - which you seem to be ignoring and confusing with 'people who disagree with me', and then pulling a Godwin to compare them to Hitler and Stalin.

[East of Eden]

So now you're buying into the Soviet Big Lie with what they called themselves. Again, just because they call themselves 'socialist' does not actually make them socialist.

No, I'm buying into Wikipedia.

I notice on your own list of economically-free countries that Australia, New Zealand, Canada and even Great Britain herself are well within the top twenty. And Britain was the first to pull out of this recent recession.

According to the UK Telegraph, Britain was the last to pull out: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... ssion.html

What are you, some kind of moral relativist? No - worse, you seem to be advocating for linguistic relativism. 'Socialism' is a word with an actual meaning - that is, (the philosophy of advocating) a democratic social order in which capital enterprises are owned by the government - which you seem to be ignoring and confusing with 'people who disagree with me', and then pulling a Godwin to compare them to Hitler and Stalin.

This definition doesn't mention the democratic part, and would certainly fit the old USSR: "Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended."

[MagusYanam]

No, I'm buying into Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is only recording what the Soviets called themselves, which had little grounding in the political realities within the USSR.

This definition doesn't mention the democratic part, and would certainly fit the old USSR: "Socialism refers to the various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended."

No, this definition does not fit the USSR, and if you knew anything about Soviet history you'd easily see that. In the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries, the Communist Party, not the public and certainly not the workers, owned and administered all capital enterprises. Otherwise, there would have been no need for Poland's Solidarnosc union movement (who by this definition were socialist, in that they were advocating greater public control over capital enterprise).

Socialism is compatible with market economics. The laws of supply and demand apply in countries with varying levels of public ownership of capital enterprises (including the United States). It's simply that public-owned enterprises have a significant impact on the supply curve, increasing quantity-supplied and keeping prices down (that's how the USPS works, anyway, along with other public-owned enterprises like the CPB). In many cases (as with the USPS and CPB) this is exactly what we want - in the case of health insurance, it's a moral imperative. Many millions of Americans need - and a significant majority want - lower prices on the health insurance available on the open market. The most effective way to do this is to create a public non-profit company which would offer basic health insurance at a minimum price to the broadest number of people possible.

In a sense, that's socialistic, but it's also in full accord with the rules of supply and demand in a market economy.

[Wyvern]

So now you're buying into the Soviet Big Lie with what they called themselves. Again, just because they call themselves 'socialist' does not actually make them socialist.

No, I'm buying into Wikipedia.

Also from wikipedia. North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). East Germany, was the informal Western name for the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic — GDR). Since wikipedia says it does that mean you believe East Germany was and North Korea is a democracy?